Tracking habitus across a transnational professional field

Abstract

The sociology of the professions has shied away from cross-national comparative work. Yet research in different professional jurisdictions emphasizes the transnational nature of professional fields. Further work is therefore needed that explores the extent to which transnational professional fields are characterized by unity or heterogeneity. To that end, this article presents the results of a qualitative interrogation of the habitus of partners in ‘Big 4’ professional service firms across, primarily, five countries (Bangladesh, Canada, France, Spain and the UK). Marked differences are observed between the partner habitus in Bangladesh and the other countries studied in terms of entrepreneurial and public service dispositions. In turn, these findings highlight the methodological relevance of habitus for both the sociology of the professions and comparative capitalism literatures: for the former, habitus aids in mapping the dynamics of transnational professional fields; for the latter, habitus can elucidate the informal norms and conventions of national business systems.

Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017015574824
Divisions: College of Business and Social Sciences > Aston Business School > Accounting
College of Business and Social Sciences > Aston Business School > Economics, Finance & Entrepreneurship
College of Business and Social Sciences > Aston Business School
Additional Information: Creative Commons Attribution - CC-BY
Uncontrolled Keywords: comparative capitalism,habitus,professional service firms, transnational professional fields, national business systems,Accounting,Sociology and Political Science,Economics and Econometrics,Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management
Publication ISSN: 1469-8722
Last Modified: 30 Sep 2024 10:44
Date Deposited: 30 Nov 2015 12:25
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Related URLs: http://www.scop ... tnerID=8YFLogxK (Scopus URL)
http://journals ... 950017015574824 (Publisher URL)
PURE Output Type: Article
Published Date: 2016-02-01
Published Online Date: 2015-07-01
Accepted Date: 2015-07-01
Authors: Spence, Crawford
Carter, Chris
Belal, Ataur (ORCID Profile 0000-0001-6144-8907)
Husillos, Javier
Dambrin, Claire
Archel, Pablo

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