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This paper argues that European public affairs is a growing labour market exposed to a gradual institutionalization, albeit important internal cleavages and fragmentations. The primary focus of the analysis is on the position and orientation of legal firms and consultants. The author agrees to scholarly writing by underlining that commercial consultants and lobbyists do not belong to the powerful actors and stakeholders of the European arena. However, he argues that these companies do have an important impact on European politics on another dimension of analysis, because they play an active role (along with the European institutions, amongst others) in the construction and organization of public affairs as a labour-market of paid work on the basis of specific skills, shared claims to superior knowledge and ethical commitments. While the legal profession tries to preserve its own professional status and privilege, and attempts to dissociate itself from the dusky work of interest representation and lobbying, it cannot detach itself from the steady institutionalization and professionalization of European public affairs, which is having indirect effects on European politics.

This paper argues that European public affairs is a growing labour market exposed to a gradual institutionalization, albeit important internal cleavages and fragmentations. The primary focus of the analysis is on the position and orientation of legal firms and consultants. The author agrees to scholarly writing by underlining that commercial consultants and lobbyists do not belong to the powerful actors and stakeholders of the European arena. However, he argues that these companies do have an important impact on European politics on another dimension of analysis, because they play an active role (along with the European institutions, amongst others) in the construction and organization of public affairs as a labour-market of paid work on the basis of specific skills, shared claims to superior knowledge and ethical commitments. While the legal profession tries to preserve its own professional status and privilege, and attempts to dissociate itself from the dusky work of interest representation and lobbying, it cannot detach itself from the steady institutionalization and professionalization of European public affairs, which is having indirect effects on European politics.

This paper argues that European public affairs is a growing labour market exposed to a gradual institutionalization, albeit important internal cleavages and fragmentations. The primary focus of the analysis is on the position and orientation of legal firms and consultants. The author agrees to scholarly writing by underlining that commercial consultants and lobbyists do not belong to the powerful actors and stakeholders of the European arena. However, he argues that these companies do have an important impact on European politics on another dimension of analysis, because they play an active role (along with the European institutions, amongst others) in the construction and organization of public affairs as a labour-market of paid work on the basis of specific skills, shared claims to superior knowledge and ethical commitments. While the legal profession tries to preserve its own professional status and privilege, and attempts to dissociate itself from the dusky work of interest representation and lobbying, it cannot detach itself from the steady institutionalization and professionalization of European public affairs, which is having indirect effects on European politics.

This research explores the relationship between institutional field level change and organisational change. More specifically, the focus of this study centres on the influence which a transition between institutional logics has on an organisation’s identity. Via an in-depth case study of a medium-sized, international commercial law firm, findings suggest that institutional field level change is manifested at the organisational level through the use of signs. Contrary to existing literature which focuses on the presence of a singular organisational strategy as a response to external field level change, this study indicates that multiple organisational strategies can co-exist, as evidenced through the use of signs. To this end, a semiotic analysis of empirical data suggests that evidence of decoupling, hybridisation and substitution can all be found co-existing within one organisation. Moreover, findings indicate that an organisation’s selection of organisational strategy is dependent on the relative proximity of a given sign from the external boundary of the organisation. Significantly, such findings are especially insightful in indicating how organisations make sense of and respond to institutional field level changes in real-time.