The Globalization of Executive Search: Professional Services Strategy and Dynamics in the Contemporary World

The globalization of the executive search industry has been fuelled by two related trends. First, within knowledge based economies, both private and public enterprises have increased demand for highly-skilled, talented labor to fill vacancies within labor markets that are functioning increasingly at a global scale. Second, the pool of potential recruits has increased dramatically as a result of the ubiquity of higher education and growth in business and executive education. In response, executive search firms have developed a range of selection technologies that complement and increasingly replace firms#xE2;#xAC;" internal Human Resource functions in order to select and recruit the next generation of transnational executives. Moreover, in the current economic crisis, the role of executive search has become even more influential in articulating executive, expert, and elite labor markets as firms engage in cut-throat competition to #xE2;#xAC;#xDC;win the war for talent#xE2;#xAC;" and seek the highest value-added labor resources for their organizations. Meanwhile, highly skilled individuals in executive labor markets are increasingly using headhunting services as they seek to maintain their own employability and career progression following periods of redundancy and employment uncertainty. As a result, a book-length analysis of contemporary trends relating to executive search, the #xE2;#xAC;#xDC;war for talent,#xE2;#xAC;" and their globalization is timely. This book examines the key actors in the process of executive search globalization #xE2;#xAC;#x1C; leading global firms, the impacts of globalization on incumbent hotspots for search and selection, mature markets such as Europe and North America, and the emerging markets of India, China and eastern Europe. In particular, it offers an interpretation of the forces producing the contemporary organizational strategies and geographies of the global executive search industry. The authors explore the changes that have occurred in global search and selection in the recent past (last 10 years especially) and the trends associated with new and emerging markets for headhunting in Asia and beyond.