IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/socres/v17y2012i4p56-66.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Doing Identity with Style: Service Interaction, Work Practices and the Construction of ‘Expert’ Status in the Contemporary Hair Salon

Author

Listed:
  • Tracey Yeadon-Lee

Abstract

This paper contributes to a growing body of scholarship concerned with hairstyling as an occupation and, more broadly, to sociological discussions concerning contemporary forms of service work. As an occupation hairstyling is largely under-researched, with the majority of existing studies restricting their focus to small low-profile salons situated in the ‘backstreets’ of rural areas or small towns. Hairstyling in larger high-profile salons, such as those in city centres, has only recently begun to be explored and critical discussion of existing knowledge in light of these environments has yet to be fully developed. The aim of this paper is to stimulate such discussion by examining how the work practices and service interactions of hair stylists in high-profile salons within the UK impact upon their status and identities in relation to clients. Research undertaken in low-profile salon settings has found that the service-oriented and commercial features of the work position stylists as subservient to clients and undermines their ‘expert’ status. Drawing on empirical qualitative research this paper shows how in contemporary high-profile salon environments, which need to manage a tension between the high cost of the service being provided and a poor ‘low-skilled’ occupational reputation, stylist-client dynamics are differently configured. It highlights how service orientated norms and practices underpinning the work of stylists are informed by discourses of customer service ‘excellence’ which promote employee proactivity and discourage customer deference. Discussion of the data shows how stylists working in high-profile salons are empowered to be directive in their service interactions with clients and engage in range of work practices which facilitate, rather than undermine, the establishment of their expert status. The relevance of the research findings to understandings of status and identity construction in service work jobs within similar high-profile settings is also highlighted in the paper.

Suggested Citation

  • Tracey Yeadon-Lee, 2012. "Doing Identity with Style: Service Interaction, Work Practices and the Construction of ‘Expert’ Status in the Contemporary Hair Salon," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 17(4), pages 56-66, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:socres:v:17:y:2012:i:4:p:56-66
    DOI: 10.5153/sro.2726
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5153/sro.2726
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.5153/sro.2726?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Shalene Chugh & Philip Hancock, 2009. "Networks of aestheticization: the architecture, artefacts and embodiment of hairdressing salons," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 23(3), pages 460-476, September.
    2. Marek Korczynski & Ursula Ott, 2004. "When Production and Consumption Meet: Cultural Contradictions and the Enchanting Myth of Customer Sovereignty," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(4), pages 575-599, June.
    3. Irena Grugulis & Steven Vincent, 2009. "Whose skill is it anyway?," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 23(4), pages 597-615, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Laura Good & Rae Cooper, 2016. "‘But It's Your Job To Be Friendly’: Employees Coping With and Contesting Sexual Harassment from Customers in the Service Sector," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(5), pages 447-469, September.
    2. Saxena, Gunjan, 2018. "Scarborough based study on bodies’ affective capacities," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 100-110.
    3. Dragos-Paul Pop, 2014. "Online Tool For Soft Skills Evaluation And Employee Management," Romanian Economic Business Review, Romanian-American University, vol. 8(2), pages 410-419, December.
    4. Malabika Sahoo & Sumita Mishra & Sasmita Mishra, 2018. "Influence of Group Composition on Participant Reactions to Training: A Study in an Indian Power Transmission Organization," Management and Labour Studies, XLRI Jamshedpur, School of Business Management & Human Resources, vol. 43(3), pages 141-155, August.
    5. Jos Gamble, 2007. "The rhetoric of the consumer and customer control in China," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 21(1), pages 7-25, March.
    6. Monica Calcagno & Francesco Casarin, 2014. "Mercati reali vs mercati virtuali? Uscire dalla crisi ripensando gli spazi della relazione con il consumatore," MERCATI & COMPETITIVIT?, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2014(3), pages 13-17.
    7. Kushagra Bhatnagar & Julien Cayla & Delphine Dion & Gregorio Fuschillo, 2024. "Consumer Sovereignty and the Ethics of Recognition," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 192(1), pages 1-19, June.
    8. Netta Avnoon, 2021. "Data Scientists’ Identity Work: Omnivorous Symbolic Boundaries in Skills Acquisition," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 35(2), pages 332-349, April.
    9. Bennett, Fidel & Escudero, Verónica & Liepmann, Hannah & Podjanin, Ana, 2022. "Using Online Vacancy and Job Applicants' Data to Study Skills Dynamics," VfS Annual Conference 2022 (Basel): Big Data in Economics 264023, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    10. Fellesson, Markus, 2011. "Enacting customers--Marketing discourse and organizational practice," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 231-242, June.
    11. Huajie Jiang & Qiguo Gong, 2022. "Does Skill Polarization Affect Wage Polarization? U.S. Evidence 2009–2021," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(21), pages 1-17, October.
    12. Dennis Nickson & Robin Price & Hazel Baxter-Reid & Scott A Hurrell, 2017. "Skill requirements in retail work: the case of high-end fashion retailing," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 31(4), pages 692-708, August.
    13. Busra Dilaveroglu & Cigdem Polatoglu & Aysen Ciravoglu, 2021. "A Review on Actor-Network Theory as a Potential Tool for Architectural Studies," Eurasian Journal of Social Sciences, Eurasian Publications, vol. 9(1), pages 44-60.
    14. Gazi Islam & Roberta Sferrazzo, 2022. "Workers' Rites: Ritual Mediations and the Tensions of New Management," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(2), pages 284-318, March.
    15. Ruth Woodfield, 2016. "Gender and the achievement of skilled status in the workplace: the case of women leaders in the UK Fire and Rescue Service," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 30(2), pages 237-255, April.
    16. Fellesson, Markus & Salomonson, Nicklas, 2020. "It takes two to interact – Service orientation, negative emotions and customer phubbing in retail service work," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    17. Virve Peteri, 2017. "Bad Enough Ergonomics," SAGE Open, , vol. 7(1), pages 21582440166, January.
    18. Ruth Simpson & Alison Pullen, 2018. "‘Cool’ Meanings: Tattoo Artists, Body Work and Organizational ‘Bodyscape’," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 32(1), pages 169-185, February.
    19. Andersson, Elias & Keskitalo, E. Carina H. & Westin, Kestin, 2020. "Managing place and distance: Restructuring sales and work relations to meet urbanisation-related challenges in Swedish forestry," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    20. Yamada, Shoko, 2023. "Constructivist analysis of cross-sectional data on varieties of skills: Contextualities and generalities of skills packages and rewards to them in Ghana and Ethiopia," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:socres:v:17:y:2012:i:4:p:56-66. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.