Firm Size and Industry Structure Under Human Capital Intensity: Insights from the Evolution of the Global Advertising Industry
Andrew von Nordenflycht ()
Additional contact information
Andrew von Nordenflycht: Faculty of Business Administration, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, British Columbia V6C 1W6, Canada
Organization Science, 2011, vol. 22, issue 1, 141-157
Abstract:
Although existing literature assumes that the human capital intensity of professional services leads to small and flimsy firms, several professional services feature large, long-lived firms. To develop insights about firm size and industry structure in human capital intensive industries, I analyze the structure and evolution of the advertising industry. Drawing on a range of quantitative and qualitative evidence, I develop two hypotheses regarding the industry's structure and consolidation: (1) size differentiation , in which firm size and industry structure are connected to the size distribution of clients' projects, and (2) financial intermediation , in which the industry's consolidation is ascribed to organizational innovations that mitigate transaction costs between external investors and ad agency owners. I then discuss the applicability of these two hypotheses to other professional services. The analysis suggests several new insights about the value of capital, the nature of demand, and the nature of assets in human capital intensive industries.
Keywords: human capital; professional services; industry structure; financial intermediation; industry evolution; advertising agencies; vertical differentiation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)
Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1090.0518 (application/pdf)
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:22:y:2011:i:1:p:141-157
Access Statistics for this article
More articles in Organization Science from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().