The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor
... Much like in jazz, where musicians improvise based on a shared understanding of standards, scales and rhythms [8], craft knowledge thrives in collaborative environments where understanding is not fixed but evolves through communal engagement and sharing improvisational practices [48]. Andrew Abbott has demonstrated how these actions are rule-based, not rule-bound [2]. This distinction marks the difference between a practice of craft that is rote, mechanical and static and one that is live, dynamic, and evolving. ...
... Just as the elements of English grammar give structure and comprehensibility to everything from a Shakespearean sonnet to the Apple iTunes terms of service, design grammars provide structure and guidance on the kinds of things that exist and how they might be composed, without determining the final shape of the result. Crucially, while grammars formalize and express elements of complex and distributed systems or practices, they do not impose a standardized script for action [40], or a fixed rule-set that determines how elements are to be achieved or composed in (all) instances; in Abbott's earlier terms, they support rule-based, not rule-bound, behaviors [2]. ...
... With documentation that evolves over time and across contributors, the grammar supports the visibility of expert deviations that emerge as experts bend and break the rules of their practice [2,8]. However, creating a knowledge archive of individual improvisations requires more than cataloging variations; it requires contextual framing that makes these improvisations legible and applicable to others within the community (Section 6.4.2). ...
Craft practices rely on evolving archives of skill and knowledge, developed through generations of craftspeople experimenting with designs, materials, and techniques. Better documentation of these practices enables the sharing of knowledge and expertise between sites and generations. However, most documentation focuses solely on the linear steps leading to final artifacts, neglecting the tacit knowledge necessary to improvise, or adapt workflows to meet the unique demands of each craft project. This omission limits knowledge sharing and reduces craft to a mechanical endeavor, rather than a sophisticated way of seeing, thinking, and doing. Drawing on expert interviews and literature from HCI, CSCW and the social sciences, we develop an elementary grammar to document improvisational actions of real-world craft practices. We demonstrate the utility of this grammar with an interface called CraftLink that can be used to analyze expert videos and semi-automatically generate documentation to convey material and contextual variations of craft practices. Our user study with expert crocheters (N=7) using this interface evaluates our grammar's effectiveness in capturing and sharing expert knowledge with other craftspeople, offering new pathways for computational systems to support collaborative archives of knowledge and practice within communities.
... Plastic surgery is a specialty that aims to reconstruct and aesthetically enhance the entire human body through a series of medical procedures. In this context, its area of expertise implies overlaps with other more anatomically delimited specialties, giving rise to jurisdictional disputes (Abbott, 1988) as to who is legitimized and who should be legally entitled to intervene in the different parts of human anatomy. These disputes are rekindled by technical innovations that, by generating market "niches", reopen the question of which specialists can aspire to penetrate these new territories. ...
... Neither is it a regional specialty (like ophthalmology and otorhinolaryngology), nor is it limited to treating alterations of a specific nature (like oncology and traumatology). Such a vast disciplinary scope constitutes a potential source of disputes in two ways: on the one hand, it can lead to internal fragmentation and dissolution into multiple subspecialties; on the other, to overlapping with the areas of intervention of other specialties and jurisdictional disputes on multiple fronts (Abbott, 1988). The second reason refers to the economic attractiveness of the practice of cosmetic surgery. ...
Los medios de comunicación argentinos contemporáneos suelen escenificar a personas que experimentaron un daño tras someterse a una cirugía estética, atribuyendo la responsabilidad de estos resultados a practicantes que carecen de idoneidad para ejecutar estos procedimientos. Sin embargo, lo que a primera vista parece un llamamiento a institucionalizar fronteras entre “expertos” y “charlatanes” es una lectura simplificada de un mercado de límites inestables y porosos. En este marco, el artículo se propone dos objetivos. En primer lugar, analizar los factores que sitúan al mercado de cirugía estética como una arena propicia a las disputas jurisdiccionales. En segundo lugar, describir las iniciativas públicas tendentes a legitimar y legalizar la jurisdicción de los cirujanos plásticos certificados sobre el mercado de cirugía estética. Por un lado, a partir del análisis de las campañas presentes en el Instagram de la Sociedad Argentina de Cirugía Plástica (SACPER). Por el otro, a través del examen de las narrativas mediáticas sobre víctimas “de” la cirugía estética, que contribuyen a legitimar y legalizar la posición de los cirujanos plásticos certificados.
... Plastic surgery is a specialty that aims to reconstruct and aesthetically enhance the entire human body through a series of medical procedures. In this context, its area of expertise implies overlaps with other more anatomically delimited specialties, giving rise to jurisdictional disputes (Abbott, 1988) as to who is legitimized and who should be legally entitled to intervene in the different parts of human anatomy. These disputes are rekindled by technical innovations that, by generating market "niches", reopen the question of which specialists can aspire to penetrate these new territories. ...
... Neither is it a regional specialty (like ophthalmology and otorhinolaryngology), nor is it limited to treating alterations of a specific nature (like oncology and traumatology). Such a vast disciplinary scope constitutes a potential source of disputes in two ways: on the one hand, it can lead to internal fragmentation and dissolution into multiple subspecialties; on the other, to overlapping with the areas of intervention of other specialties and jurisdictional disputes on multiple fronts (Abbott, 1988). The second reason refers to the economic attractiveness of the practice of cosmetic surgery. ...
Los medios de comunicación argentinoscontemporáneossuelenescenificar a personas que experimentaron un daño tras someterse a una cirugía estética, atribuyendola responsabilidad de estos resultados a practicantesque carecen de idoneidadpara ejecutar estos procedimientos. Sin embargo, lo que a primera vista parece un llamamiento a institucionalizar fronteras entre “expertos” y “charlatanes” es una lectura simplificada de un mercado de límitesinestablesyporosos.En este marco, el artículo se propone dos objetivos. En primer lugar, analizar los factores que sitúan al mercado de cirugía estéticacomo una arena propicia a las disputas jurisdiccionales. En segundo lugar, describir las iniciativas públicas tendentes a legitimar y legalizar la jurisdicción de los cirujanos plásticos certificados sobre el mercado de cirugía estética.Por un lado, a partir del análisis de las campañaspresentes en elInstagram de la Sociedad Argentina de Cirugía Plástica.Por el otro, a través del examen de las narrativas mediáticas sobre víctimas“de” la cirugía estética, que contribuyen a legitimar y legalizar laposición de los cirujanos plásticos certificados.
... Most polytechnics still educate designers or product designers rather than industrial designers. The term industrial designer is, however, not protected by legislation, a criterion needed for full professional jurisdiction (Abbott 1988). ...
... To predict the future of a professional practice is never easy. There are many external factors, such as the arrival of new technology, which affect the development of the practice but are difficult to predict (Abbott 1988). ...
... En este escenario, la noción de experiencia social resulta muy útil para analizar las pruebas post egreso de la educación terciaria, las formas de gestionarlas y los aprendizajes adquiridos en ese proceso. Para el caso de la investigación propuesta, se hace necesario reconstruir los escenarios de la educación superior y del trabajo a través del lente analítico del sistema de profesiones (Abbott, 1988) y, en ese marco, indagar en las prácticas y estrategias desplegadas por los/as egresados de pedagogía, entendido este rubro como un ecosistema de actores que definen y delimitan ofertas y demandas específicas, así como los criterios de valuación y evaluación de lo que se entiende como "docente idóneo". Junto con ello, el concepto de experiencia social nos permite explorar las ma-neras en que los recién egresados articulan distintas lógicas de acción y el modo en el que les otorgan sentido a las experiencias profesionales. ...
Esta investigación tiene como objetivo analizar la inserción laboral de
egresados de pedagogía básica de universidades con distintos niveles de
acreditación en Chile. Para ello, se adoptó una metodología mixta, que
constó de dos fases: a) cuantitativa, en la que se aplicó una encuesta a
223 profesores/as noveles egresados entre 2020 y 2022; b) cualitativa,
que incluyó 9 grupos focales y 12 entrevistas individuales a egresados
de programas de distintas acreditaciones, además de 9 entrevistas a
directivos de escuelas. Los resultados muestran diferencias en los
perfiles de egreso según la acreditación, además de ausencias en
aspectos claves. En la búsqueda de empleo, se destaca un ecosistema de
redes personales, profesionales y plataformas digitales. Los procesos de
inserción laboral evidencian la relevancia de las culturas escolares, el
clima laboral y los apoyos recibidos. Asimismo, los hallazgos muestran
que las docentes noveles tienen la intención de permanecer en el aula,
aunque la deserción aparece como una posibilidad en un contexto
en el que se mantienen factores como la poca remuneración, el bajo
prestigio social, y se suma la emergencia de situaciones de violencia y
la sensación de desprotección. Se identifican diferencias por tramo de
acreditación del programa formativo, por origen social y género del
profesorado. Además, existe escaso conocimiento sobre el Sistema de
Desarrollo Profesional Docente y los procesos de mentoras.
... Our rationale for studying vets was twofold. First, akin to medicine, they are members of what is often regarded as a prototypical profession (Abbott, 1988), and findings may be relevant to other high status occupational groups, especially those who, like our sample, work closely with their peers in competitive industries. [2] Moreover, vets are increasingly encouraged to consider issues of 'professional identity, self-awareness and self-reflection' (Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS), 2022). ...
This paper extends theory by showing how occupational identity regulation operates jointly through both desired and feared identities which, in combination, enforce normative control. Taking a narrative identity perspective and drawing on an ethnographic and interview‐based study of veterinarians, we make three principal contributions to our understanding of identity regulation. First, we explain how, in high surveillance contexts, occupational members construct not just positively valenced desired identities but also negatively valenced feared identities, and how feared identities are antagonistic foils to desired ones that enhance their appeal. Second, we analyse how self‐discipline is exerted through dual processes of self‐examination: prideful talk that affirms desired identities and guilt‐ridden talk which casts doubt on their attainment and spurs auto‐correction. Third, we demonstrate how conformist identity work which (re)produces occupational identities through desire and fear reduces people's scope for resistance. This research highlights identity work that is non‐supportive of the (desired) self and how an appreciation of feared in addition to desired identities is vital to understand fully the tensional nature of occupational selves.
... Alors que la professionnalisation infirmière est jalonnée par une quête d'autonomie (rôle propre, contrôle de la formation, etc.) face à la subordination médicale (Lert, 1996), la spécialisation revêt un enjeu symbolique. Son étude présente un double intérêt sociologique : étudier la recomposition des territoires professionnels et les « luttes de juridiction » (Abbott, 1988) consécutives de l'introduction d'échelons intermédiaires dans la division du travail médical ; examiner les conditions sociales de possibilité d'engagement dans des parcours impliquant une longue reprise d'études (deux ans) et la mobilisation de dispositions scolaires, sociales et techniques. Nous nous attacherons ici à cette deuxième question, puisqu'elle offre une occasion d'interroger les définitions des mobilités professionnelles et éclaire sous un angle nouveau les fragmentations internes au groupe infirmier. ...
Les infirmières anesthésistes se distinguent par une importante autonomie clinique et un binôme étroit avec les médecins anesthésistes. Mobilisant récits biographiques, observations et un questionnaire, cet article interroge la sociogenèse de leurs dispositions techniques et de leur sentiment d’assurance vis-à-vis des médecins. Il investigue plus spécifiquement leurs propriétés sociales et trajectoires dès la sortie des études en soins infirmiers. Leur fréquent début de carrière en réanimation constitue un investissement cognitif, socialement différencié. Il renforce l’incorporation d’une série de dispositions et nourrit un sentiment d’usure lié aux conditions d’exercice et des frustrations tenant aux limites du statut infirmier. La reprise de formation comme infirmière anesthésiste parachève un triple reclassement statutaire – clinique, matériel et symbolique – qui consacre la place singulière de ce sous-groupe infirmier.
... Additionally, its transnational nature and importance must be explained. Allan (2017), referencing Abbott (1988), argues that 'modes of abstraction' such as models or statistics are useful tools as they wash away some of the context-specificity of an issue, which makes it easier to demonstrate its global nature. There are similar conceptualizations to 'modes of abstraction', such as 'logic of extraction' (Kuntz, 2015), or 'simplification' (Ormond & Goodman, 2015), that seem to explain similar rationalities. ...
The enhancement and protection of coastal ecosystems that sequester carbon for climate change mitigation have developed over the last 15 years, and today are part of climate governance. After an initially challenging start in terms of policy interest, Blue Carbon is now included in some countries’ national inventories, and as such, enters the global sums of emissions and sinks, and becomes relevant for market-based mechanisms. This study focuses on how these ecosystems were made governable as carbon sources. This making of Blue Carbon can be seen as a global governance object drawing on the co-production of science and policy. It needs to be understood as both a part of and the result of the broader climate change policy envelope. The application of standardization and the process of making values visible and invisible have been important, inherently building on the idea that the carbon flows of these ecosystems can be managed. They are also subject to their natural actions and responses, and the question of how to manage them if they become greenhouse gas emission sources is left unanswered. Likewise, when Blue Carbon becomes an element of global climate governance in terms of carbon, it blurs the conservation and climate adaptation dimensions of the same systems, which may not be conducive to effective action minding risks and leveraging synergies. Increased plurality in the meaning-making process, with a greater focus on relationality and across policy arenas, could be a way to develop alternative governance mechanisms for coastal ecosystems.
This study examines the functions and ambivalences of the diagnostic model for trans healthcare in Japan. Drawing on interviews with 18 trans healthcare seekers, it explores how diagnosis operates not only as a medical requirement but as a socially embedded practice shaping access to care and self‐understanding. Although often used expediently to obtain treatment, diagnosis also serves as a site of exploration or endorsement. This study identifies an additional layer of ambivalence—rooted in the structural imbalance of explanatory authority—beyond existing accounts of strategic navigation. Diagnosis may offer reflection and confirmation of identity and needs, but it also risks producing epistemic injustice by undermining individuals' authority to define their own experiences. The resulting ambiguity of validation‐dependency, alongside the illness–care conundrum, creates an epistemic contradiction: the same diagnostic process that grants access and affirmation may also constrain self‐determination. This study contributes to the trans health scholarship by foregrounding the interpretive work of trans healthcare seekers and critically analysing diagnosis as a practice of both regulation and care.
Le développement de l’intelligence artificielle (IA) en santé a fait l’objet de nombreuses promesses sensationnalistes. Reposant sur une enquête qualitative conduite auprès des acteurs du secteur, cet article propose de rompre avec les effets d’annonce et d’examiner l’implémentation concrète de ces technologies dans le domaine médical. Il explore les reconfigurations en cours, en mettant l’accent sur le travail de redéfinition des métiers et des juridictions professionnelles qu’entraîne la délégation algorithmique. Il révèle que, focalisés sur l’implémentation de l’IA dans la prise de décision médicale, les débats ont souvent omis de considérer les choix et les tensions normatives sous-jacents à cette délégation et propose d’étudier les divergences d’intérêts entre les acteurs en présence. En reliant l’articulation de la délégation en santé à des enjeux économiques et politiques plus étendus, cet article met en lumière les dynamiques de pouvoir et les implications sociales associées à l’émergence de ces technologies.
The main objective of this paper is to analyze the impact of inner organizational user innovation on dynamic capabilities and innovative behavior within firms. Previous research has shown that knowledge and information required for innovation are dispersed among the firm and beyond. However, knowledge management does not consider the value of the executant’s (tacit) knowledge as a source of dynamic capabilities and innovation. This is problematic because the introduction of digital technologies in the workplace can lead to significant changes in work and organization, posing a challenge to employees. If technologies are not accompanied by innovative behavior, it can damage a firm’s competitive advantage. To address this issue, it is necessary to recognize the importance of tacit knowledge and inner organizational user innovation to secure a firm’s knowledge capital and enable innovative behavior among employees. This paper utilizes a mixed-methods design that comprises a structural equation model based on a representative study of employees in Germany (n = 1989) in Study 1 and a qualitative study consisting of 14 expert interviews with managers and consultants in Study 2. This paper contributes to the literature by demonstrating that the theory of dynamic capabilities does not account for the internal friction within the firm between technology and innovative behavior and that knowledge management disregards executant workers in innovation. We show that inner organizational user innovation brings executant’s knowledge back in.
Financial infrastructures are the lifeblood of political economies and are consistently considered critical by governments. They encapsulate socio-technical processes; not merely cables and computer servers, but the relationship of those in finance to these and other physical objects. The Cambridge Global Handbook of Financial Infrastructure consolidates the study of financial infrastructures by bridging political economy, humanities, sociology and science and technology studies. It delves into the core questions of modern finance, from the effect of digitalization on financial functions to the intricate web of global power dynamics. Drawing together interdisciplinary research, it explores the nuances of inclusivity and exclusivity within financial systems, shedding light on historical inequalities and colonial legacies. Including fresh insights, compelling case studies, and conceptual advances, this essential volume offers invaluable perspectives for informing analysis of the past, present, future of finance, and shaping policy debates. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Several articles have debated the differences between critical and traditional accounting history, generally concluding with a call for reconciliation. This article argues that this debate has been lost, and critical history has claimed the field. After reviews of historiography that dispute the foundations of accounting critical history research, the article discusses the very real consequences of this defeat: that actual history research has become irrelevant to accounting research. On a hopeful note, a review of several recent historiographic articles in accounting journals suggests that this point is gaining currency, although it has yet to permeate most mainstream journals.
Professionalism is a crucial element of curricula in many profession-oriented higher education programmes. However, defining and working with professionalism-oriented learning objectives can be challenging. Comparative perspectives on professionalism across educational contexts are often missing. This study explores educators’ ideas on what students need to learn to effectively navigate and manage their professional practice within three professional education programmes: police, medical, and social work. The analysis captures how professionalism is portrayed in documents and interviews with teachers. The findings highlight shared ideas of professionalism across educational boundaries. The concept is described as multi-dimensional and complex, necessitating more communication about what can be expected of students and how teaching and assessment should be designed.
Réunissant régulièrement, sous l’égide des préfectures, des représentant·e·s d’administrations jugées compétentes en matière de lutte contre la radicalisation, les cellules de prévention de la radicalisation et d’accompagnement des familles (CPRAF) font cohabiter, derrière un objectif commun, des logiques institutionnelles et professionnelles distinctes. Cet article s’appuie sur deux enquêtes de terrain qui approchent ces espaces par leurs marges. Il vise à analyser ce que les CPRAF produisent chez les agent·e·s qui se positionnent du côté de la « main gauche » de l’État. Si la cohabitation contrainte entre des professionnel·le·s de la sécurité et de l’intervention sociale ne va pas sans susciter des tensions, ces réticences n’empêchent pas des formes de collaboration aux rétributions variées. Entre l’injonction à coopérer et l’enthousiasme à l’égard de ces nouveaux partenariats, c’est tout un panel de pratiques et de représentations qui se déploie, contribuant à la transformation des ethos professionnels et à la socialisation des agent·e·s de la prévention aux grilles d’analyse policières.
In response to Andrew Abbott’s (1988 , 1995 ) work on professionalization and Gil Eyal’s (2013) work on the sociology of expertise, and employing grounded theory as a method, we propose that some forms of expert labor in knowledge organization (periodical indexing and related activities) are not fully captured by established professions. Rather, these activities permanently exist in a borderland between professions. Two types of borderland are discussed: structural and identity/consciousness. We draw upon borderland theory, which has its origins in Chicano studies and anthropology, to explicate this.
Understanding the societal consequences of organizations is a perennial, if sometimes neglected, concern within the field of organization studies. Recently, such concerns have been given renewed emphasis, with one vibrant stream of research focusing on “grand challenges,” particularly those with a strong societal component, directed at a common good beyond that of business organizations themselves. This might include issues such as sustainable development, natural disasters and pandemics, poverty, community regeneration, and climate change. This volume builds on the current interest in grand challenges by taking seriously the problem of “organizing beyond organizations,” and by engaging with the unique methodological and theoretical toolkits afforded by a process studies perspective to address these issues. Societal challenges are inherently interorganizational, necessitating theoretical approaches that not only examine organizational action but also frame that action in terms of its wider relational dynamics with other stakeholders. Although some of these considerations are not new, their implications for addressing societal issues such as grand challenges and Sustainable Development Goals has scarcely been considered, let alone how traditional and nontraditional modes of organizing might jointly work toward achieving such outcomes. The chapters embrace the power of a process worldview in order to understand the dynamic nature of any particular grand challenge or societal issue as it evolves within the relationality of actions and practices within and between organizational actors.
How do “novel” spaces of transnational law emerge rather than being captured within existing legal regimes? This article argues that processes driving how the subject matter of a transnational legal space is defined and framed and by whom are notable in mediating such outcomes. The article presents the empirical case study of global neurotechnology governance and examines socio-legal processes whereby individual and organizational actors have constructed and defended neurotechnology as a distinct space of transnational law. Here, I argue that this can be understood as boundary work, which examines discursive and spatial processes of demarcating social entities from one another. The article shows how attention to external and internal boundaries around and within a transnational legal domain can sensitize socio-legal analysis to the more emergent features of these spaces, including more subtle modes of exclusion, cooperation, and coordination. The article concludes by reflecting on how attention to processes of boundary work can enrich inquiry into, and critique of, the earliest stages of transnational legal ordering.
Zusammenfassung
Der vorliegende Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit der Bedeutung von Wissen in Praxisvollzügen Sozialer Arbeit. Auf der Grundlage einer konversationsanalytischen Untersuchung von Hilfeplangesprächen (HPG) wird gezeigt, wie der Rekurs auf Wissen mit den Zielen der einzelnen Gesprächsphasen im HPG korreliert und auf welche Anforderungen er dabei reagiert. Wie die Untersuchungen zeigen, erweist sich der Gesprächsverlauf im HPG als ein Dreischritt der Etablierung, Validierung und Internalisierung fallbezogenen Wissens, mit dem vor allem das professionelle Wissen implementiert und gültig gemacht wird. Dieses Wissen ist funktional in dem Sinne, als es die Professionellen bei den zu lösenden Problemen der Fallbearbeitung unterstützt. Als ein zentrales Problem der Fallbearbeitung erweist sich das soziale Commitment, also die Herstellung von Mitwirkungsbereitschaften der entscheidungsbetroffenen Klientel, ohne die eine effektive Fallbearbeitung nicht gewährleistet ist.
This chapter will review the development of journalism norms in a democratic society, focusing on how social responsibility theory evolved from libertarian theory and how journalism professionalism has been established and developed in the U.S. It will also examine the conflicts between journalism professional norms and the advent of digital technology, as well as the industry’s uncertain competitive landscape.
In this chapter, we synthesize the discussions in the chapters that comprise this book. This synthesis points at several themes that cut across all the chapters and appear to characterize the historical evolution of international business (IB) as a field of study. These are the role that individual scholars have played in IB’s development; the independent and concurrent development of IB thought, teaching, and institutions; the interdisciplinary nature of IB’s development that involved the blending of theory and methods from other social sciences and business functions; and the impact of contextual influences in inspiring renewed perspectives on IB phenomena and thought development. We also offer projections about where IB might go in the future within the interactive dynamics among IB thought, teaching, and institutions. We suggest a need to delve into issues related to unit of analysis and to deepen understanding of IB’s interdisciplinary identity and the way it shapes the boundaries of IB and its future as a field of study.
This history of international business (IB) as an academic field sets IB in the context of the larger system of academic disciplines, then compares it explicitly with seven other fields in social and natural sciences and in professional studies. The chapter begins with a brief overview of the system of academic fields that coalesced from 1850 to 1900, as disciplinary associations, secular universities, and research institutes arose. It describes how through these institutions, core disciplines (physics, biology, and economics) gave rise to other disciplines and subfields, which developed numerous theoretical and empirical discoveries laying groundwork for post-1950 advances. The chapter then compares IB with the historical development of management, economic history, world history, African studies, climatology, primatology, and network science. These fields, while varied, all benefited from the era’s growing international and cross-disciplinary ties. Among them, IB’s focus was on the application of the internalization logic to move from FDI to the structure of MNEs, thus exploring a new, rapidly growing, and changing organizational form, rather than developing new knowledge about existing topics. This novelty might explain in part IB’s struggle to establish its legitimacy as an academic field of study. In scale of analysis, IB focused on the MNE and its internal operations set it apart from the other fields studied that have alternated between micro and macro levels.
Les emplois en établissements d’hébergement pour personnes âgées dépendantes (Ehpad) conjuguent de nombreux facteurs défavorables : des conditions de travail pénibles physiquement et psychologiquement, des rémunérations souvent faibles et une image négative. Alors que la majorité des travaux scientifiques sur le sujet étudient les difficultés de recrutement de personnel soignant, cet article propose un autre angle d’analyse en posant la question suivante : pourquoi les travailleuses d’Ehpad acceptent-elle de rester dans le secteur ?
This introductory chapter presents the underlying rationale for the study of the history of International Business as an academic field of study which motivated us to write this book. It refers to benefits gained via the observation of long-term dynamics contextualized in time that a historical study offers. It also discusses the benefits of comparisons across time and the ability to observe cumulative, path-dependent dynamics and establish causal inferences among them enabled via historical analysis. The chapter then proceeds to describe international business as a field of study, referring to the three dimensions of fields of study, namely knowledge (theory), teaching, and institutions. It concludes by briefly presenting the contents of the book in chronicling and analyzing the history of international business thought, teaching, and institutions.
How do cultural intermediaries shape the consumption of cross-cultural products in taste economies? This study examines how Taiwanese specialty coffee baristas mediate third-wave coffee culture through the Coffee Taster’s Flavor Wheel , employing three strategies: ‘flavour advocates’, who align with Western flavour standards; ‘flavour localisers’, who adapt descriptions to suit local palates; and ‘taste negotiators’, who bridge global and local food systems through sensory negotiation.
Baristas actively reshape ‘good taste’ within cultural contexts, crafting new taste communities that simultaneously democratise specialty coffee and reinforce cultural hierarchies. As key cultural intermediaries, they embed coffee within Taiwan’s global and local identity, mediating between transnational commodity flows and local consumption practices.
By foregrounding sensory narratives and professional expertise, this study reveals how baristas integrate Taiwan into global value chains while asserting a distinct gastronomic presence. These findings contribute to debates on consumption, globalisation and cultural intermediation, illustrating how expert knowledge standardises taste while shaping consumer agency and market differentiation.
Why would a law-abiding occupational community support members engaged in legally prohibited actions? We propose that lawbreaking can elicit informal support when it is construed as a disinterested action—intended to serve the community rather than the perpetrator. We study how illegal remixing (“bootlegging”) affects an artist’s ability to secure opening act and other performance opportunities in the electronic dance music (EDM) community, whose members endorse the substance of copyright law but whose norms about bootlegging are ambiguous. Data on 38,784 disc jockeys (DJs) across 97 countries over 10 years reveal that producing bootlegs is associated with more opportunities to perform, compared to producing official remixes or original music. This effect disappears when community members view bootlegging as a self-serving action—primarily designed to benefit the perpetrator. An online experiment and an expert survey rule out the possibility that bootlegs are considered more creative, of higher quality, or better able to attract attention. We shed additional light on our proposed mechanism by analyzing data from 34 interviews with EDM professionals. This helps us to explain how a lawbreaker can paradoxically be perceived as serving the community, thereby eliciting active community support for their action.
This article considers how name change comes about by examining fieldwide debates among actors such as professionals and activists. Analysing a range of primary qualitative materials produced by leading US organisations over a 75‐year period, it focuses on a case from the disability advocacy field in several shifts from older terms to more recent ‘intellectual disability’ (ID) language in the United States. As opposed to framing these changes solely as matters of identity politics or destigmatisation, I argue that these naming politics can be better historically contextualised as struggles fundamentally tied to organised lay/professional expertise and field position. Although many professionals resisted proposed changes as counterproductive, insurgent activists repeatedly marshalled their own claims to expertise surrounding the disability experience and eventually successfully pushed for the replacement of previously legitimate diagnostic terminology. This recognition of expertise, however, does not translate to equal footing among stakeholders but varies by timing and issue context. To highlight this, I differentiate between traditional and emergent ‘expert identity’ and extent of ‘expert control’. I suggest such a perspective might be applied to a range of fields where similar disputes over language have come to occupy significant attention.
Experts must adapt to immediate circumstances when managing impressions and be able to reassert credibility and exercise authority when performing professionalism. A credible professional is constructed, applied, and recognized locally as well as relationally, particularly within the context of careers in bureaucratic structures. Few studies investigate professional credibility through processual approaches assessing experts’ testimony and practice in situ as they manage their careers over a period of time. We examine the cycles of professional credibility in a rural elementary state school in Brazil, focusing on how credibility is constructed, applied, and recognized in highly regulated bureaucratic systems. We use the “credit cycle” framework from science and technology studies to analyze education professionals’ positions, career paths, and group dynamics. Our ethnographic approach included participant observation, document analysis, audio-visual data collection, and interviews with education workers. We used event-related phases and narrative analysis to analyze data and uncover insights into professional credibility, expanding the concept of the credit cycle beyond laboratories to include primary education professionals and managers. We consider how individual professional credibility is enacted by producing report cards and educational projects within what is a highly regulated educational system. What is “critical” in our research is a critique of the approach to the bureaucratization of professions that suggests that the outcome is “de-professionalization” or “proletarianization.” Our research findings highlight professional credibility’s relational, transactional, dynamic, and cyclical nature and offer practical insights for understanding and enhancing expertise in bureaucratic settings. Future studies should apply the credit cycle to other professional contexts.
Si toute la population a été affectée par la pandémie de Covid-19, les plus âgés ont fait l’objet d’un traitement particulier pendant cette période, a fortiori ceux pris en charge en Ehpad où les contraintes et limitations ont été profondes. Par une approche narrative et mémorielle, à partir des récits formulés par ces derniers, l’article interroge l’idée selon laquelle les souvenirs de cette période s’inscriraient d’emblée dans les mémoires, dans les parcours, voire dans les conceptions que les individus ont d’eux-mêmes. Il s’agit d’interroger, a posteriori , les traces laissées par l’événement, ses (re)formulations, les processus d’effacement et d’oubli, les modalités d’articulation entre passé, présent et avenir. Les récits de confinement apparaissent dès lors comme des récits de soi. Reprenant le fil de ces narrations, l’article analyse les perturbations générées par la crise dans le rapport au temps, à l’espace, aux autres et à soi, en relevant comment l’événement a pu participer à l’émergence de questions et de revendications identitaires au grand-âge. Il présente alors les stratégies narratives déployées pour y répondre : pour rétablir de la continuité au-delà de la crise, pour assurer une cohérence entre Soi performé et Soi revendiqué, et ainsi affirmer une identité d’actif, voire de jeune, que la pandémie ne saurait avoir contestée.
Prenant appui sur une recherche sociologique concernant l’accompagnement professionnel et familial des personnes avec trisomie atteintes de la maladie d’Alzheimer, cet article propose d’explorer les enjeux liés à l’obtention d’un diagnostic pour ce public. Il cible plus particulièrement le travail diagnostique élaboré par deux catégories d’acteurs : d’une part, les professionnels exerçant dans des établissements du champ du handicap amenés à accompagner des personnes avec trisomie présentant des signes évocateurs de la maladie d’Alzheimer et, d’autre part, les médecins sollicités pour établir un diagnostic médical. Le travail d’élaboration diagnostique fait en effet l’objet d’enjeux variés pour les professionnels du champ du handicap, en fonction de leurs expériences antérieures ainsi que des configurations institutionnelles dans lesquelles ils évoluent. Pour les médecins, le travail diagnostique met au défi les pratiques médicales en bousculant leurs cadres ordinaires. Il apparaît notamment que leur niveau de sensibilisation à la prévalence de la maladie d’Alzheimer chez les personnes avec trisomie et leur connaissance des démarches diagnostiques adaptées à la déficience intellectuelle sont très hétérogènes. Enfin, ce travail diagnostique peut faire l’objet de tensions entre médecins.
Background: The 'Guidelines on Midwifery Services Initiative, 2018' introduces the Nurse Practitioner in Midwifery (NPM) cadre to improve maternal mortality rates, quality of care, and reduce overmedicalisation in the Indian public health system. The paper examines how the NPM cadre is envisioned in the guidelines, positioned within the medical hierarchy, and aligned within the existing maternal health context. It also looks at how existing midwives and midwifery advocates perceive the changes introduced and the accompanying professionalisation process. Methodology: The study employed two methods: (a) qualitative document analysis (QDA) of the midwifery guidelines and (b) semi-structured in-depth interviews with 14 nurse-midwifery leaders and advocates.
Findings: The QDA uncovers the underlying themes of task shifting and institutional deliveries as dominant, discussions on professional autonomy and primary health care receiving less importance and even less reflection on the history of midwifery in India. The interview findings highlight (a) tensions around carving out a separate profession, (b) the implications of midwifery at the primary healthcare level and (c) the need for an enabling environment for midwives. This paper reveals how the guidelines frame midwifery as a cost-effective, specialised nursing care within the institutional delivery framework and distanced from its traditional connotations. Discussion: It elucidates tensions around autonomous midwifery involving professional boundaries, negotiations with medical professionals, institutional perceptions, and historical stereotypes. It builds on the broader literature on 'professions' in sociology by identifying aspects of 'professional boundary work' embedded in policy documents and experiences of participants-thereby unpacking the midwifery professionalisation process in the Indian context.
This research examines the professionalisation of strategic communication as a teaching discipline by exploring perceived tensions within the subject. Higher education is a “battleground” for both professions and would-be professions, and the study offers a deeper understanding of the dynamic tensions shaping the professionalisation process of this discipline. However, there has been limited research in this area within strategic communication. This study is based on qualitative interviews with 25 programme directors of international master’s programmes and leading academics from various parts of the world. The empirical findings show that the interviewees perceive the tension between theory and practice as crucial. Some educational programmes prioritise theory to provide students with a profound understanding of fundamental principles, whereas others emphasise practice to enhance employability and practical skills. The study shows that the perceived dichotomy theory and practice in master’s programmes is oversimplified and involves several nuances and distinctions. The research provides greater insight into how tensions surrounding professionalism arise in emerging fields at the university level, particularly in disciplines that are still establishing their position and trajectory. Furthermore, it raises new questions about how university systems and traditions affect professionalisation processes.
Many experts are increasingly being tasked with bridging or reconciling different forms of value. How do experts handle valuations that conflict with their own? Drawing on in-depth interviews with Mexican historic heritage officials and secondary sources, we analyze the case of state historic preservation experts in Mexico who managed the restoration of over two thousand churches and chapels damaged by two earthquakes in 2017. Communities that used the temples valued the heritage primarily for its religious and everyday social significance, while insurance representatives saw it in economic terms, and preservation officials valued it for its historic significance, respect for original construction, and technical qualities. In this context, preservation experts sought to align these conflicting values, reducing the value dissonances and precariously making them compatible. In this aligning, they mobilized their authority differently with various actors. With local communities, they downplayed their expert authority, emphasizing dialogue and empathy, even as congregations sometimes jeopardized preservation efforts with unauthorized repairs. Preservation officials aligned their valuation of heritage with economic value more reluctantly. When dealing with insurance adjusters, preservation officials wielded their technical expertise to advocate for their vision of restoration funding. However, the practical challenges of damage evaluation and the complexity of heritage monuments facilitated aligning valuations with insurance. This article contributes to the intersections of the sociologies of valuation, expertise, and money.
Los medios de comunicación argentinos contemporáneos suelen escenificar a personas que experimentaron un daño tras someterse a una cirugía estética, atribuyendo la responsabilidad de estos resultados a practicantes que carecen de idoneidad para ejecutar estos procedimientos. Sin embargo, lo que a primera vista parece un llamamiento a institucionalizar fronteras entre “expertos” y “charlatanes” es una lectura simplificada de un mercado de límites inestables y porosos. En este marco, el artículo se propone dos objetivos. En primer lugar, analizar los factores que sitúan al mercado de cirugía estética como una arena propicia a las disputas jurisdiccionales. En segundo lugar, describir las iniciativas públicas tendentes a legitimar y legalizar la jurisdicción de los cirujanos plásticos certificados sobre el mercado de cirugía estética. Por un lado, a partir del análisis de las campañas presentes en el Instagram de la Sociedad Argentina de Cirugía Plástica (SACPER). Por el otro, a través del examen de las narrativas mediáticas sobre víctimas “de” la cirugía estética, que contribuyen a legitimar y legalizar la posición de los cirujanos plásticos certificados.
Driven by the need to enhance the status of interpreting practice, scholars in recent decades have shown a growing interest in the professionalisation of interpreting practice. However, research on this topic remains fragmented and compartmentalised. Using the systematic literature review methodology, this paper presents a review of the topic. The objective is to identify and analyse the theoretical approaches and key aspects that underpin research on the professionalisation of interpreting practice. The review identified five theoretical approaches (trait, control, performative-organisational, expert-performance and boundary work), and four key aspects of professionalisation (status, certification, training, and organisational intervention). Despite the useful findings and discussions of the literature, the analysis found a lack of theoretical engagement, and an over-reliance on the traditional approaches of trait and control. Also noted is a failure to emphasise the uniqueness and complexity of the field of interpreting which is rooted in the notion of bilingualism/multilingualism, and therefore linked to the co-existence of professional and non-professional interpreters. The review rounds up with suggestions for future research and alternative theoretical frameworks.
Cet article traite de l’emploi du terme « jardinier » dans la sphère professionnelle agricole. À l’occasion d’une enquête par entretiens conduite au cours de l’année 2022 auprès de 54 chefs d’exploitation français, nous avons repéré la convocation spontanée et récurrente du terme « jardinier » et de ses déclinaisons (« jardin(s) », « jardiner »). Notre analyse du recours à cette désignation par les agriculteurs interrogés permet de rendre compte de deux phénomènes. D’une part, le fait de qualifier un agriculteur de « jardinier » relève souvent d’une forme de stigmatisation qui vise à souligner un défaut de compétences, de méthodes ou d’ambitions professionnelles. Ce stigmate du « jardinier » est encore fréquemment mobilisé dans la profession notamment par les tenants d’une agriculture conventionnelle, spécialisée et intensive qui condamnent par là même de nouvelles méthodes culturales et leurs promoteurs. D’autre part, cette étude montre que s’opère parfois un « renversement » ou un « retournement » dudit stigmate. En effet, certains agriculteurs – encore minoritaires, mais dont le nombre va croissant – baptisent volontiers leur exploitation du nom de « jardin » et se disent tout aussi volontiers, et parfois même de façon revendicative, « jardiniers ».
In times of political crisis and attacks against the foundations of political liberalism, can we put our trust in lawyers and other legal occupations to fight for our freedoms when they are under attack? The role of the legal profession in the rise, development, and resilience of political liberalism has been at the core of a body of work commonly framed as “the legal complex”: Terence C. Halliday and Lucien Karpik’s Lawyers and the Rise of Western Political Liberalism , Halliday, Malcolm Feeley, and Karpik’s Fighting for Political Freedom , Halliday, Karpik, and Feeley’s Fates of Political Liberalism in the British Post-Colony , and Feeley and Malcolm Langford’s The Limits of the Legal Complex. In view of the precariousness of political liberalism in contemporary global politics, this review essay reflects on the core ideas of the legal complex literature. By identifying connections with other strands of scholarship on legal agents, legal mobilization, and the move to law in transitional politics, I suggest rescaling the study of the legal complex to enable consideration of its relevance for the study of political liberalism at the international level of analysis and, specifically, of its importance to the resilience of the liberal international order currently in rapid decline.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.