Promotion Strategies for Hierarchically Organised Professional Service Firms: Is “Up or Out” Always the Best? Available to Purchase

It is argued that in a hierarchically organised professional service firm the appropriate long‐term promotion strategy is “up or out”. This argument is based on both a theoretical analysis of alternative strategies and on data from consulting and engineering consultancies in the United Kingdom. Only the “up or out”strategy can balance a professional service partnership in times of both growth and stagnation.