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AbstractFor leading law firms in the City of London, diversity and inclusion has become an important human resources strategy during the past fifteen years. A recent focus on social class within the sector has been encouraged by increasing governmental concerns relating to social mobility which acknowledge that elite professions, particularly the law, have become more socially exclusive over the past thirty years. Based on a detailed qualitative study of six leading law firms conducted between 2006 and 2010, this paper asks: why do leading law firms discriminate on the basis of social class? It argues that discrimination is a response to conflicting commercial imperatives, the first to attract talent and the second to reduce risk and enhance image. The paper describes these dynamics, emphasising the role played by the ambiguity of knowledge. It argues that until these conflicting demands are reconciled, organisational and state-sponsored initiatives centred on the 'business case' for diversity, may achieve only limited success.
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AbstractThis article explores social exclusion in elite professional service firms (PSFs) through a qualitative study of six legal, accounting, investment banking and consulting firms. Employing a Bourdieusian perspective we find that all six firms privilege candidates with the same narrow forms of cultural capital, while acknowledging that this contradicts their professed commitment to social inclusion and recruiting the best 'talent.' We find that this behaviour is enshrined within the habitus of elite firms. We argue that it represents an organisational strategy generated by a compulsion to achieve legitimacy in a specific field of London-based elite PSFs. We identify a 'professional project' of sorts, but argue that this can no longer be mapped on to the interests of a discrete occupational group. As such, we contribute to studies of elite reproduction and social stratification by focusing specifically on the role of elite professional organisations in the reproduction of inequality.
A B S T R AC TThe UK's elite law firms have recently seen a shift from talking about equality of opportunity alone to the adoption of a diversity discourse as well. This article examines this transition for what it can tell us about the value of diversity strategies as a means for widening access to the corporate legal profession on the basis of social class, focusing on five elite law firms based in the City of London. A number of studies have demonstrated how cultural practices within the legal sector maintain exclusionary mechanisms based on class. There has been less attention to how this is sustained within an amended institutional framework which outwardly 'celebrates' difference. This research suggests that though diversity strategies do little to change organisational cultures, those that recognise both the depth of professional prejudice within the sector and the reality of educational inequality across the UK may prove relatively progressive nonetheless.
K E Y WO R D Sclass / diversity management / equal opportunities / ethnicity / inequality / law firm
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AbstractWe draw on comparative research conducted at three leading UK accountancy firms to ask, is the business case for diversity fatally flawed in relation to gender and flexible work? The business case has proved controversial in the academic literature, where it is said to have displaced the moral case and justified the enactment of ritual around diversity rather than generate substantive change. Studies suggest that within the accountancy sector both cases are subsumed beneath a strong 'client service ethic,' deployed to justify long hours and support the status quo. We show that the business case for diversity has made a limited contribution to transformational change because it is based on the retention of talent, when perceived competitive advantage and career progression rest on temporal commitment to work. For accountancy firms, this finding may represent an inconvenient truth.However, the business case can also encourage engagement with underlying narratives surrounding gender and equality, and thus represent a convenient fiction, contributing towards incremental change.
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