Suchergebnisse

Résumé Cet article soutient que la célébration autonomiste du travail immatériel est prématurée. En montrant de quelles façons les calculs comptables pénètrent la vie sociale et continuent à organiser l'expropriation systématique du general intellect , il suggère qu'il y a des obstacles réels à la transcendance de la discipline capitaliste. Plus la socialisation du travail le rend hors-mesure, plus agités et plus élaborés sont les efforts du capital pour le mesurer et le contrôler.

The meaning of professionalism is changing, with the commercial pressures of globalization exerting dramatic pressures on the nature of professional work and the skill sets required of professionals. This article engages with this debate by reporting on a qualitative, empirical study undertaken in a domain that has been largely neglected by sociology: professional accounting. Focusing on the elite 'Big 4' accounting firms, the ways in which partners and other senior accountants embody institutional logics into their habitus are analysed. It is shown that the embodiment of different logics is inextricably linked to the establishment of hierarchy within the Big 4, with a commercial-professional logic accorded a significantly higher status than a technical-professional logic. Further, the article responds to critics of Bourdieu's notion of habitus, highlighting how habitus does not merely denote the passive internalization of external structures, but is also capable of disembodying constraining institutional logics, thereby highlighting scope for professional self-determination.

Abstract
Established professional occupations can become the preserve of elites when fitting in is driven by class-based criteria. In contrast, digital entrepreneurship has been proposed as a means by which people may emancipate themselves from societal constraints. We interrogate digital entrepreneurship's meritocratic foundations by way of a 36-month ethnography of a startup incubator. Attending to the dispositions of digital entrepreneurs, we reveal they use cultural tastes and manners to create the incubator as a place where members of the privileged class can reinvent themselves at their leisure, all the while adopting the meritocratic mythologies of digital entrepreneurship to disavow their own privilege. This opens up a two-fold contribution to the study of professions and occupations. Firstly, we demonstrate how professional and occupational roles are epiphenomenal to class positioning. Secondly, the parallels between the legitimating discourses of entrepreneurs and more established professional jurisdictions attest to a community that is in the process of professionalization.

Strategic change in public sector organizations has been well documented. This article suggests that public management research would benefit from a greater appreciation of how calculative practices are deeply imbricated with, and constitutive of, organizational life. In turn, the article argues that the field of interdisciplinary accounting has much to learn from public administration, especially in terms of leadership. The overarching argument is that understanding strategic change in public organizations can be enhanced by bringing together insights from the academic fields of public administration and interdisciplinary accounting. In this respect, organizational reform can be understood as a triptych, involving strategic change, leadership and accounting practices. We illustrate this thesis through a case study of strategic change in the world's largest public service broadcaster—the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). It is shown how, during the tenure of one organizational leader—John Birt—accounting became pivotal to his leadership.

Prior research generally presents work–family decisions as an individual's rational choice between alternatives, downplaying the crucial role that upbringing plays in shaping work and parenting decisions. This article emphasizes how habitus – historically constituted and embodied dispositions – structures perceptions about what is 'right' and 'normal' for working mothers and fathers. This relational approach explores how the entrenched dispositions of individuals interact dynamically with contextual imperatives to influence professionals' work–family decisions. Drawing on 148 interviews with 78 male and female professionals, our study looks at much deeper rooted causes of work–family conflict in professional service firms than have hitherto been considered. We show how dispositions embodied during one's upbringing can largely transcend time and space. These dispositions hold a powerful sway over individuals and may continue to structure action even when professionals exhibit a desire to act differently. In turn, this implies that the impediments to greater equality lie not only in organizational and societal structures, but within individuals themselves in the form of dispositions and categories of perception that contribute towards the maintenance and reproduction of those structures. Additionally, in a more limited number of cases, we show how dispositions adapt as a result of either reflexive distancing or an encounter with objective circumstances, leading to discontinuity in the habitus.

Class analysis has undergone a 'cultural turn' in recent years, driven most notably by the growing influence of the work of Pierre Bourdieu. We seek to connect this perspective with organization studies via an analysis of the political, economic and cultural cleavages that exist within a sample of professionals, managers and executives – summarily, the UK professional class. The results show that significant cleavages exist within the UK professional class in terms of economic and cultural capital composition and political dispositions. However, the most significant differences observable are not related to classic materialist 'left' and 'right' perspectives as recent research elsewhere suggests, but on more epiphenomenal issues such as immigration, equal rights and the environment. In an era where the professions find themselves in crisis (Leicht, 2016), the results imply that professional groups should take politics more seriously and actively articulate how professional expertise can contribute to the common good.