ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the theoretically frames questions about the way the globalization of executive search has involved processes of legitimisation and market making. It outlines how work on institutions and professional projects can be used to theorise the attempts of the executive search new profession to create new practices and markets of elite labour recruitment. The chapter describes the establishment by the Association of Executive Search Consultants (AESC) of the second dimension of professional projects-the regulation of production by producers-before moving on to reflect on the effectiveness of the AESC's activities in carving out and closing off a new professional domain through formal state-level recognition. It provides the theoretical interpretation of the way the executive search new profession has emerged and globalized during the latter half of the twentieth and early years of the twenty-first century.
