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Understanding social exclusion in elite professional service firms: field level dynamics and the ‘professional project’

Author

Listed:
  • Louise Ashley

    (Royal Holloway, University of London, UK)

  • Laura Empson

    (City University, UK)

Abstract

This 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 organizational 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 organizations in the reproduction of inequality.

Suggested Citation

  • Louise Ashley & Laura Empson, 2017. "Understanding social exclusion in elite professional service firms: field level dynamics and the ‘professional project’," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 31(2), pages 211-229, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:31:y:2017:i:2:p:211-229
    DOI: 10.1177/0950017015621480
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Suddaby, Roy & Cooper, David J. & Greenwood, Royston, 2007. "Transnational regulation of professional services: Governance dynamics of field level organizational change," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 32(4-5), pages 333-362.
    2. Carlos Ramirez & Lindsay Stringfellow & Mairi Maclean, 2015. "Beyond segments in movement: a “small” agenda for research in the professions," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 28(8), pages 1341-1372, October.
    3. Daniel Muzio & David M. Brock & Roy Suddaby, 2013. "Professions and Institutional Change: Towards an Institutionalist Sociology of the Professions," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(5), pages 699-721, July.
    4. Andrew C G Cook & James R Faulconbridge & Daniel Muzio, 2012. "London's Legal Elite: Recruitment through Cultural Capital and the Reproduction of Social Exclusivity in City Professional Service Fields," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 44(7), pages 1744-1762, July.
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