Covid-19 has been a disrupting event in contemporary social life but is far from being a great equaliser. Preliminary studies have put in evidence how different social groups faced a differentiated risk of contagion and coped differently with the various consequences of the emergency. Evidence shows how minorities and migrants face disproportionally higher risks of contagion than the white upper and middle class, and how vulnerable communities are more exposed to deaths and the rapid spread of the virus. At the same time, societies are coping with social distancing measures and their disruptive social and economic consequences, which have a more significant impact on the most vulnerable segments of societies: women, children, low-income classes and ethnic minorities. This article argues that an intersectional framework allows an understanding of what is occurring in the current pandemic, both in terms of its social determinants and social consequences. To open the black box of inequality, intersectional scholars analyze the intersections of multiple structures of inequalities (such as gender, age, class, ethnicity), which have a multiplying effect when disadvantaged positions intersect in the same individual. Covid-19 is a clear example of an intersectional phenomenon: the impact of individual and community exposure to Covid-19 is the results of multiple and interrelating structures of inequality. Up to now, research in social sciences has underestimated the role of intersectionality in analyzing the social and economic consequences of this pandemic.

The traditional debate about professional groups has mainly focused on conflicts between professions and organizations, reinforcing dualisms and dichotomies. Few scholars have investigated the extent to which professionalism and organizations are intertwined while focusing on the case of professionals integrated into large organizations, and even less attention has been paid to emerging forms of organization among self-employed professionals. Taking as an example organizational trends among architects (liberal professionals) and management consultants (emerging professionals) in Italy, this article investigates how small, flexible, and (often) interprofessional organizations promoted by self-employed professionals are increasingly instrumental in overcoming market pressures and responding to emerging social needs in times of crisis and austerity.

Management consultancy has long been a contested terrain in the sociology of the professions. Although the professionalism of management consultants has always been emphasized by practitioners themselves, the lack of a strong community of peers has been an impediment to their professionalization. In this article, I argue that professionalism is not the outcome of a process of regulation and institutionalization but that it has to be conceived a discourse comprising norms, worldviews, and values that define what is appropriate for an individual to be considered a competent and recognized member of this community. Given the diversity characterizing the field, there are multiple discourses surrounding professionalism of management consultants, and these discourses are shaped by work settings. Work settings are a combination of the type of organization professional partnership or professional service firm and the employment status (employee or self-employed). Drawing on the empirical evidence from various work settings (professional service firms, professional partnership, and self-employment), I investigate four clusters of practitioners identified in 55 biographical and semi-structured interviews conducted with management consultants in Italy. Four types of professionalism emerge from the clusters. Organizing professionalism is the sole professionalism that appears in all work settings. Other discourses (corporate, commercialized, and hybrid professionalism) are context-dependent and more likely to be found in specific work settings.

No abstract