ABSTRACT
This chapter explains why and how retained global executive search firms have become transnational professional service corporations in their own right over the recent past. It focuses on the generic explanations for the globalization of retained executive search firms. The chapter examines the organisational structure of globalizing executive search firms. Here we distinguish among three types of structures: wholly owned integrated firms; strategic alliances of network groups of associated member firms who retain local trading names; and the strategic alliances of hybrid groups of associated member firms who trade under one global brand and image. The chapter highlights the major globalization drivers of executive search firms and groups: following clients abroad into new markets; overcoming self-imposed regulation, the so-called 'off-limits' rule; and market making, in which firms essentially introduce the practice of executive search to uncharted markets, like Eastern Europe in the 1980s.
