International co-ordination and management development: An application at PricewaterhouseCoopers

Internationalization and globalization are focal issues in professional services. Not only large consulting firms such as PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), but also financial institutions are joining forces in an effort to act decisively on a global scale. This globalization constitutes a substantial challenge to professional service providers such as PwC. Human resource management in general and management development in particular play an important role. This article aims to describe this role. This challenge is considerably complicated by the fact that PwC is an organization where most staff members have a potential to move on to top management positions, although only few have the ambition, expectations or opportunity to actually get there. Many "junior" personnel could just as well have entered the management development (MD) or trainee program of another big (international) firm. At PwC, managers or prospective managers in the broadest sense of the word are a majority in the total workforce. On the other hand, PwC has international management positions to be filled.