Professionalization through symbolic and social capital: Evidence from the careers of elite consultants

Abstract

This article contributes to the debate about how more recent professions, especially those related to management, might achieve a semblance of ‘professionalism’ in the absence of the conditions that facilitated the creation of the traditional professions such as medicine, law or accounting in the 19th century. Much of the recent literature has either argued that these professions had to rely on some form of ‘image professionalism’ or that the professionalization process was ‘captured’ by the dominant firms within the professional field, with the aim of creating corporate, firm-internal rather than open labor markets for these professionals. Building on Bourdieu’s notions of symbolic and social capital, we suggest an alternative pathway to professionalization in stratified professional fields. We namely argue that a career at one of the ‘elite’ professional service firms (PSFs) can provide privileged access to positions at other firms within the same field. Hence, such a career constitutes a form of closure regime and allows, at least to some degree, the external labor mobility so typical of traditional professions. We explore this alternative pathway to professionalization by analyzing a novel and unique historical data set of former McKinsey consultants, identifying a number of boundary conditions that seem to facilitate such intraprofessional careers and others, which, over time, might weaken it. We conclude by pointing to a number of broader contributions from our research.

Working It: Managing Professional Brands in Prestigious Posts

“…Complementing prior work grounded in social identity theory that suggests a person’s self-understanding of who they are can be enhanced by affiliation with a prominent brand (e.g., Tavassoli, Sorescu, and Chandy 2014), our work aligns with prior literature (e.g. Kipping, Bülhmann, and David 2019) which suggests working in a prestigious post can positively influence a person’s standing in the eyes of other stakeholders in a field. Moreover, by analyzing the practices of professional brands in prestigious posts through a field lens, we have surfaced hitherto neglected factors that may fuel, if not disloyalty to an employer, at least some efforts to limit the extent to which the professional brand is conflated or viewed as synonymous with that of the organizational brand that employs them.…”

“…This article offers insights that are timely in an era when people must be ever more attentive to managing their career mobility and entrepreneurial options, considering that people who hold prestigious posts must always be ready to seek their next opportunity (cf. Godart et al 2015; Kipping, Bühlmann, and David, 2019; Wang, Gupta, and Grewal 2017). We hope our study helps those managing their professional brands in these precarious times.…”

“…While this body of prior research yields invaluable insights, it stops short of illuminating our focal phenomenon: individuals who must manage their professional brands when working in prestigious posts. Considerable research indicates that professionals in many fields tend to hold high-profile jobs for relatively limited periods of time and move from job to job within an industry with some frequency (e.g., Godart et al 2015; Kipping, Bühlmann, and David 2019; Wang, Gupta, and Grewal 2017). Thus, individuals working in prestigious posts must ensure that they safeguard and build their professional brand equity such that they preserve their career mobility for taking on new posts or running their own businesses.…”

Мир Профессий В Контексте Труда И Занятости: Пандемическое И Цифровое Вертиго

“…Мир современных занятий в области управления и финансов стал активно развиваться вместе с организационным усложнением индустриального и постиндустриального общества, и эти занятия не могли повторять путь профессионализации, который прошли «старые профессии», подобные праву и медицине. Поэтому стратегия профессионализации «новых» занятий строилась на организационном, институциональном и культурном мимезисе уже сложившихся профессий -включая создание системы образования, ассоциаций, притязания на теоретическое осмысление практической работы и т. д. Международная группа исследователей охарактеризовала специфику профессионализации таких новых занятий, которые в основном сконцентрированы в «профессиональных сервисных фирмах» (professional service firms or PSF) и включают широкий спектр деятельностей,управленческий консалтинг, архитектуру, дизайн и другие интеллектуальные услуги [Kipping, Buhlmann, David, 2019]. Эти занятия стремятся формировать «имидж» профессии, воспроизводя основные элементы институционального декора профессионализма, но в основном они формируются в организационной среде «мягких бюрократий» и их труд опирается на менеджериалистские принципы, а поэтому их путь профессионализации несколько иной, чем был у «старых» профессий: он связан с карьерными возможностями, репутацией и позицией их организации, а также с конвертацией различных типов капитала в сфере своей специализации.…”

Research on professional organizations: A review of theoretical traditions, themes, methods and locations

“…(2020) on banking; and Kipping et al. (2019) on elite consultants. A related stream of work on institutional logics, either concerning their intractability (Raelin, 1991; Reay & Hinings, 2009) or the possibility of hybridity (Adams, 2020; van Schothorst, et al., 2020), or even “fluidity” (ten Dam & Waardenburg, 2020).…”