Search results

AbstractGlobal professional service firms (GPSFs) are key actors in contemporary capitalism. They (co-) produce and disseminate new business practices, linking firms, sectors, and countries, integrating them into a global system. We examine a second, less studied function of these firms: underpinning capitalism's status hierarchies. We ask whether these firms have emerged as producers of a new corporate nobility—as an extension of elite universities, and as a stepping stone in the selection and promotion of top executives. Focusing on the US, we ask: do global professional service firms merely amplify the credentials of elite universities, or can they compensate for an absence of an elite education in the careers of US top managers? and do professional service firms equip future top managers with specific expertise or merely with symbolic capital? Based on a sample of 2,610 top executive managers from leading American firms in 2005 and 2018, we study the role law, consulting, or audit firms played in their careers. Using multinomial regression analyses, we find that the career function of GPSFs varies: consulting firms amplify existing status and enhance the symbolic capital of alumni, aiding their ascent to the most prestigious jobs in US top firms. In contrast, top managers leverage audit firm roles to compensate for a non-elite background, yet then tend to be channelled into narrow, specialist roles in top management. We relate these results to Bourdieu's state nobility analysis and propose an augmented typology of these firms at the heart of contemporary capitalism.

Sighard Neckel, Lukas Hofstätter, Marco Hohmann: Die globale Finanzklasse: Business, Karriere, Kultur in Frankfurt und Sydney. Frankfurt am Main: Campus 2018. 9783593509006

Goldthorpe's conception of mobility into the service class relies strongly on biographical explanations. Hence, it is surprising that empirically biographical trajectories are often approached using methodological proxies. Employing a sequence analysis of the work histories of 13,119 members of the National Child Development Study's 1958 cohort, we examine different routes into the service class. It appears that there are two important roads leading to the service class: one direct and short, the other tortuous and long. Surprisingly, these two routes fork not along the boundaries of the factions of the service class, but along gender lines. Women move later and through feeder occupations to service class positions, whereas men attain these positions immediately subsequent to the educational phase. We explain this by different feeder logics for men and women.

This doctoral thesis deals with the rise and potential fall of achievement career as an institutional biographical pattern. I start with the assumption that the achievement career, as a result of the spread of large-scale bureaucratic companies, the male-breadwinner family model, and meritocratic ideals, came to life in the first half of the twentieth century. During the so-called 30 glorieuses, it became even a normatively dominant and also politically significant male biographical pattern. But the structural changes that announced the end of the post-war golden age seemed also to threaten and-according to certain scholars-erode this type of occupational trajectory. In order to understand this dynamic I will try to reconstruct the achievement career in Switzerland empirically. I examine (1) the structural changes of the economic field from 1970 to 2000, (2) the transformations of the trajectories during this period, and (3) ways in which the concerned individuals interpret and react to these changes.

Die männliche Aufstiegskarriere prägt bis heute unsere Vorstellungen von sozialem Erfolg. Allerdings: Mit der Umorganisierung des marktwirtschaftlichen Systems in den 1980er und 90er Jahren geriet dieses Biographiemuster zunehmend unter Druck. Mit einer Kombination von qualitativen und quantitativen Methoden geht der Autor am Beispiel der Schweiz der Frage nach, wie sich Aufstiegskarrieren gewandelt haben. Er zeigt, wieso die "neue Karriere" dem Karrieremodell von Finanzspezialisten nachempfunden ist, wie die Aufsteiger ihre Laufbahn wahrnehmen und warum besonders ältere Ingenieure unter den strukturellen Umbrüchen der 1990er litten.

Cet article se propose d'étudier la manière selon laquelle l'internationalisation du milieu bancaire helvétique a transformé les carrières de ses élites bancaires. En combinant une analyse des correspondances multiples des dirigeants des 37 plus grandes banques suisses en 2010 avec une analyse qualitative fondée sur des données prosopographiques et des entretiens biographiques, nous montrons que les carrières des dirigeants bancaires sont polarisées par une opposition entre des élites transnationales et des élites nationales. Les élites transnationales, évoluant dans des grands groupes, se caractérisent par une forte mobilité internationale, sous forme de séjours de formation et d'expériences professionnelles à l'étranger, tandis que les élites nationales, évoluant dans des structures moins financiarisées, se distinguent par un ancrage régional.

In recent times internationality has become an indicator for scientific excellence arguing that it will create talent, diversity, and inspiration. But what does "in-ternationality" really stand for in science? In order to answer this question we study two of the most hierarchized and internationalised disciplines – economics and business studies – in one of the most internationalised academic labour markets – Switzerland. Based on a historical database of 411 (full and associate) university professors of economics and business studies at three benchmarks (1957, 1980, and 2000), we investigate the evolution of internationality during the second part of the 20th century, and its link to scientific prestige and recognition. For both disciplines we find an increase in foreign professors and internationalisation of Swiss professors due to doctorial and postdoctoral phases spent in the US and other shorter stays abroad. This development can first be observed in economics, but business studies have managed to "catch up." Using three negative binomial regression models we show that Switzerland imports excellence among professors and that high scientific prestige is linked to stays abroad, especially in the dominant US fields of economics and business studies.

»Internationalisierung der Volks- und Betriebswirtschaftslehre: Exzellenzimport, kosmopolitisches Kapital oder amerikanische Dominanz?«. In recent times internationality has become an indicator for scientific excellence arguing that it will create talent, diversity, and inspiration. But what does "internationality" really stand for in science? In order to answer this question we study two of the most hierarchized and internationalised disciplines – economics and business studies – in one of the most internationalised academic labour markets – Switzerland. Based on a historical database of 411 (full and associate) university professors of economics and business studies at three benchmarks (1957, 1980, and 2000), we investigate the evolution of internationality during the second part of the 20th century, and its link to scientific prestige and recognition. For both disciplines we find an increase in foreign professors and internationalisation of Swiss professors due to doctorial and postdoctoral phases spent in the US and other shorter stays abroad. This development can first be observed in economics, but business studies have managed to "catch up." Using three negative binomial regression models we show that Switzerland imports excellence among professors and that high scientific prestige is linked to stays abroad, especially in the dominant US fields of economics and business studies.

In recent times internationality has become an indicator for scientific excellence arguing that it will create talent, diversity, and inspiration. But what does "internationality" really stand for in science? In order to answer this question we study two of the most hierarchized and internationalised disciplines – economics and business studies – in one of the most internationalised academic labour markets – Switzerland. Based on a historical database of 411 (full and associate) university professors of economics and business studies at three benchmarks (1957, 1980, and 2000), we investigate the evolution of internationality during the second part of the 20th century, and its link to scientific prestige and recognition. For both disciplines we find an increase in foreign professors and internationalisation of Swiss professors due to doctorial and postdoctoral phases spent in the US and other shorter stays abroad. This development can first be observed in economics, but business studies have managed to "catch up." Using three negative binomial regression models we show that Switzerland imports excellence among professors and that high scientific prestige is linked to stays abroad, especially in the dominant US fields of economics and business studies.