Shared service centers and professional employability

This paper presents case study evidence of evolutionary changes in business support functions resulting in a fundamental hollowing out of the professional space over time and distance, creating the ‘hourglass’ profession. In an IT-enabled, boundaryless world, many professional activities can now be undertaken, in the manner of the Martini slogan, ‘any time, any place, anywhere’.This paper aims:⁎To investigate the shared service center as an emerging organizational form with the potential to drive fundamental change in the nature and location of professional work.⁎To explore the impact of these changes for individual professional workers, and to highlight the need for a greater focus on individual employability as the driver of an overall career trajectory.