Managerial capability in the professional firm ‐ assessing competences in the City

Discusses how firms and, indeed, entire industries are likely to attract and reinforce particular skill profiles among their employees. Such biases are an inevitable consequence of distinctive business environments, technologies, market conditions and labour markets. The City has traditionally excelled in its range and depth of technical expertise; but as conditions change so do skill requirements. Given increases in scale, cross‐functional dependence and product complexity, the effective exploitation of technical skills at the level of the firm is increasingly reliant on well‐developed “managerial” capabilities among large numbers of “professional” staff. Drawing on case study and interview data, provides evidence of a serious shortage of such managerial skills among City firms. Further suggests that firms engaged in international wholesale financial services lag behind those in other sectors in their analysis, assessment and development of high performance management competences. Very strong “entrepreneurial” and “professional” traditions, driven largely by US and UK firms, have contributed to the City’s pre‐eminence. However, these may also limit the ability of firms to exploit expertise within and between professional teams fully.