With the recent Occupy movement, the concept of ethics and trust in the City has barely left the news - the perception remains that the City does not serve the wider economy and society.

On October 27th 2011, leading figures came together to discuss a recent initiative to restore trust in the City. The aim of this initiative, established by The Rt Hon The Lord Mayor, Alderman Michael Bear, was to look at practical ways to embed the right values and behaviours in the DNA of every City business and worker.

This major research report, produced by Cass for Airmic (the Association of Insurance and Risk Managers in Industry and Commerce) investigates the origins and impact of over twenty major corporate crises of the last decade.

The crises examined involved substantial, well known organisations such as Coca-Cola, Shell and BP, as well as some smaller firms. Several did not survive and most of the rest suffered severe damage.

The current working paper argues that these dichotomized models ignore the variety of forms of governance prevalent within the professional service firm sector- in reality a professional service firm will adopt multiple forms of governance over time in response to its increasing scale and complexity.

Partnership or corporation? Private or public? Adhocracy or professional bureaucracy? It is very easy to think of the governance of professional service firms in terms of these simple dichotomies.