Neo-colonial dynamics in global professional service firms: a periphery perspective

ABSTRACT

This article analyses neo-colonial dynamics at peripheral units of a Western global professional service firm. Drawing on postcolonial theory, an empirical study at global news agency Reuters’ subsidiaries in Mumbai and Bangalore shows how socio-ideological and technocratic control mechanisms allow subsidiary workers to elevate their status, while still cementing their role as dominated in the global hierarchy and silencing any resistance. Thus, on the one hand, it might appear that the global service firm provides periphery units the opportunity to become equals of core units, representing a ‘nurturing’ role achieved by instilling aspirational values and shaping imaginations. On the other hand, coercive and universalising routines such as performance assessments highlight the ambivalent nature of global firm initiatives to incorporate the periphery on an equal footing with core units, demonstrating the countervailing nature of contemporary power relations.     

Social work as a bureaucratic professional labour: an empirical analysis in non-profit organizations in northern Portugal

In the last decade and a half, a new perspective on sociological analysis of professional groups has gradually emerged: professionalism and professionalization are no longer analysed as opposed to bureaucracies. In a previous article, we developed an analytical model in which we theorized a hybrid concept of Bureaucratic Professional Work (BPW), based on a theoretical hypothesis of association between various organizational forms (divisional bureaucracies, professional bureaucracies, neo-bureaucracies and post-bureaucracies) and different types of professional work in social work. Structured interviews were conducted with 63 social work professionals who work in 35 non-profit organizations of social services in northern Portugal. We questioned how these professionals perceive their own work in relation to the level of control and centralization of decisions, the routine of procedures and the predictability of results. We also study how social constraints, the tasks performed and work in multidisciplinary teams vary according to the type of BPW. This allows us to detail the modalities of the BPW and set out exploratory hypotheses for other more extensive quantitative studies as well as complementary studies of a qualitative nature.     

Rethinking the concept of professionalism: the case of journalism

Journalists in the UK have always been ambivalent about what form of occupational control to pursue. Although resistant to the structures of the conventional profession, they have embraced the idea of 'professionalism'. As the formations traditionally associated with Anglo-American professions become relevant to fewer and fewer employees and increasingly subject to external regulation it is more relevant, we suggest, to investigate how the discourse of 'professionalism' as a set of values and identities can be mobilized by employers as a form of self-discipline. Journalism, notable for its powerful occupational mythology, provides a vivid example of how this process has eased the imposition of radical changes to the organization of work. Now, ironically, recent changes in the occupation's social composition and training may mean that journalists, who have always cherished a self-image as socially marginal, will aspire to conventional professional respectability.     

Gender and professional identity: A qualitative study of social workers practising as counsellors and psychotherapists

This article presents an analysis of the interactions between gender and class in the career pathways of social workers practising as counsellors and psychotherapists. Gender is one of the strong patterns found in the empirical data generated by a qualitative study of the professional identity of practitioners in social work. Gender was found to have a strong influence on the career choices made by men and women in social work. Women in the sample have pursued career directions that continue to have a strong clinical focus, combined with other roles such as management, supervision and training. They are more likely to express the need to balance their working lives with the needs of their families. Men are more likely to single-mindedly pursue careers in management and to express feelings of responsibility to provide for their families once children are born. However, the analysis of data also found that men were more likely to identify their family origins as working class, while women identify their family backgrounds as middle class. This patterning shows the complex interactions between gender and class in determining life outcomes. These differential pathways and work preferences need to be recognised and addressed to work towards more equitable outcomes for practitioners within social work, so that structural disadvantages on the basis of gender and class are challenged rather than replicated.     

How states tighten control: a field theory perspective on journalism in contemporary Crimea

This article contributes to denationalizing Bourdieu’s field theory by analysing the relationship between a regional news media field, the state and transnational influences. The article seeks to answer the question of how a state can impose limits on the autonomy of the news media field during political transition. Field theory is applied to changes that have taken place in Crimean news media since Russia’s annexation of the peninsula in 2014. Drawing on narrative interviews with journalists who worked in Crimea in 2012–17, expert interviews, and secondary sources, I demonstrate how Crimea’s news media field went from being dominated by varied Ukrainian private news media owners to becoming dominated by the Russian state. I show that states can employ direct measures such as anti‐press violence and ownership appropriation of news media outlets in order to increase concentration of state media ownership. In addition, states can reallocate capital in the news media field, disenfranchising some journalists and outlets while favouring others. The adaptive strategies of individual journalists, who, upon losing capital, can sometimes relocate or leave their jobs, also changes the composition of news media fields. Departing from a common view of social spaces as bounded within nation‐states, I examine how the news media field of Crimea has been shaped by both transnational influences, and by the direct imposition of Russian state power through a reconstitution of national borders.     

Integrating Religious and Sexual Identities: The Case of Religious Homosexual Men in Singapore

Abstract

The sexual and religious ecosystem in Singapore represents an intricate interplay of factors that religious homosexuals navigate to attain a well-adjusted personal identity. A qualitative research project was conducted to understand how Christian and Muslim homosexual men in Singapore integrate their religious and sexual identities. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine religious homosexuals to elicit responses on their dual-identity experience, and coping strategies. Narrative analysis revealed three themes (and a number of subthemes): (1) Intrapersonal factors (a personal journey, knowledge seeking, reinterpreting belief system, redemption by good deeds, and love prevails over sin), (2) Interpersonal factors (segregating social circles, involvement in the gay community, role models, and social support), and (3) Sociopolitical factors (state and societal tolerance of homosexuals, and homosexual events). Interestingly, the participants assigned positive attributes to being both religious and homosexual, and reported that embodying both identities was enriching than if they had possessed just one of the two identities. This suggests that integrating positive psychological frameworks (e.g., stress-related growth) to existing ones may provide a more holistic account of identity integration among religious homosexuals.     

Embedded journalism: constructing romanticized images of China by US journalists in the 1970s

This case study examines the memoirs of American correspondents who were “embedded” within official delegations during the course of the US–China rapprochement in the early and mid-1970s. We seek to analyze how short-term visiting journalists arrived at their romanticized portrayals of Maoist China – when it was going through the chaos of the Cultural Revolution – and how the embedding journalistic practice served to facilitate foreign policy ventures orchestrated by both governments. We conclude that this romantic wave of media portrayal was entwined with journalistic preconceptions and a high level of dependency upon local fixers. Furthermore, we use discourse analysis to identify three “ideological packages” in their interpretation of the “new China” and its Cultural Revolution: material progress through self-reliance; a sense of purpose and morality; and equality.     

Shifting Identities: Chinese Muslims in Malaysia

This paper concerns Chinese Muslims in Malaysia, and attempts to explain the phenomenon behind the shift in their identities towards either religion or ethnicity. It proposes that, upon arriving in Malaysia, the Chinese Muslims, finding themselves overwhelmed between a majority non-Chinese Muslim community and a majority non-Muslim Chinese community, have, for survival purposes or by political design, rather quickly assimilated into one group or the other. The paper takes as examples a few Chinese Muslim clans or families from different regions of Malaysia. It also briefly narrates the situation of the Chinese converts, and discusses the development in their status from a ‘social anomaly that exists in an ethnic limbo’1 ?1?Judith Nagata, ‘The Chinese Muslims of Malaysia: New Malays or New Associates? A Problem of Religion and Ethnicity’, in Gordon P. Means (ed.), The Past in Southeast Asia's Present (Secreteriat, Canadian Society for Asian Studies, Ottawa. Ontario, 1978), pp. 102?–?13. View all notes to a small community of Malaysian Chinese who are Muslim, and who are accepted as such by all segments of society.     

Web analytics and the functional differentiation of journalism cultures: individual,organizational and platform-specific influences on newswork

A key development in journalism over the past decade has been the rise of web analytics for real-time measurement of how audiences respond to news content. While this has led to concerns that analytics may contribute to a dumbing down of news, our understanding of the impact analytics have on journalism culture is still limited. This study explores individual, organizational and platform-specific influences on ways in which journalists and newsrooms access, use, interpret and apply analytics in their daily work. It argues that, increasingly, analytics are beginning to shape and reshape journalistic roles, values, norms and practices across different types of newsrooms. These developments are contributing to processes of functional differentiation in the journalistic field, which is found particularly in emerging practices of day- and platform-parting. The study argues that this differentiation has important consequences for scholars wanting to study news production, distribution and content in the digital age.     

Beyond professional snail races: Contextualizing corporate communication in Indonesia

This study provides an overview of the current state of corporate communication in some of Indonesia’s largest companies. A cross-cultural survey of senior managers highlights the uniqueness of Indonesia by comparing practitioners’ perceptions with results from two Western countries, namely Austria and Australia. The results reveal the limitations of traditional professionalization theories; embedding corporate communication into the cultural and institutional context has proved to be more instructive. Practitioners in Indonesia employ a comparably critical distance to their own cultural environment. However, at the same time, they are highly adaptive when it comes to the stringently regulated and politicized institutional context of their work. From a normative perspective, we would instead support a self-understanding of professional communicators as societal change agents.     

Urban Identity as a Global Phenomenon: Hybridity and Contextualization of Urban Identities in the Social Environment

Major sociospatial transformation processes are taking place, and so concepts such as tradition, distinctiveness, and identity have become fundamental but delicate factors in the context of the social environment. Consequently, identity has become not only a term, but rather a comprehensive theme and concept, in making new places and built environments. In this context of argument, this article elucidates the implication of identity at different scales. It emphasizes the importance and hybridity of urban identities and how they may become entities or even mechanisms to overcome globalization issues. This article looks at global examples to exemplify various manifestations of urban identities. This theoretical article aspires to promote debates that can benefit current research programs in the context of globalization, urban identity, and sociocultural diversity. Finally, the aim here for specifying different levels of urban identities is not necessarily toward categorizing them, but rather to identify their roles and propositions in various scales that are related to humans and their social environments.     

Legitimating journalistic authority under the state's shadow: a case study of the Environmental Press Awards in China

This study investigated the legitimation of journalistic authority in the form of journalism awards. The Environmental Press Awards, an unofficial but highly regarded news competition among Chinese environmental reporters, was selected as a case study. The case was examined from three interconnected dimensions: the creation and maintenance of moral and pragmatic legitimacies; the strategic processes of cognitive and social legitimation; and a dual process of symbolic legitimation of the market media ideology. Research conclusions were formed based on statistical analysis of 181 award submissions and 10 in-depth interviews with key personnel in the host organizations, the journalism community, and environmental non-governmental organizations. By looking into the establishment, dynamics, and results of the awarding process, the alliance between the market media and the green civil society was seen to have created and buttressed the legitimacy of the award. Without the blessing from the party-state, such legitimacy is vulnerable but can also be enabling.     

An interdisciplinary approach to the development of professional identity through digital storytelling in health and social care and teacher education

The present article presents a study based on an interdisciplinary approach to research into reflection on identity construction. This multiple case study explores the narrative of professional identities in digital artefacts. It is aimed at exploring in what way digital storytelling can be used as a suitable pedagogical strategy for the construction of professional identity. The students involved in the innovative learning activity comprise two groups of Health and Social Care students in the UK, two groups of Primary Education student-teachers and one group of Secondary Education student-teachers in Spain. Thematic analysis is used to identify the topics addressed by students in exploring their professional identities, including values and the process of learning itself. Finally, the lessons learned from this interdisciplinary approach to reflection on identity and the implications these have not only for teaching and learning design but also for future collaborative research projects are set out in the discussion and conclusions.     

Queering Identities: The Roles of Integrity and Belonging in Becoming Ourselves

This article presents a picture of the complexities and contradictions in the daily lives of people in the Seacoast area of New Hampshire who identify as, or are identified as, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender queer, questioning, and allied people (LGBTQQA). In this study, the author uses a grounded theory approach to focus on the Create Our Destiny conference. Clear patterns emerged, such as the importance of coming out, labels, and gender identity. A common theme underlying these areas was the tension people experienced between seeking a sense of belonging and maintaining their personal sense of integrity. This study shows that people in the Seacoast want to be fully and wholly themselves, or as the author represents their interests, to strive toward singularity. The author argues that striving towards singularity requires people to grapple with their unexamined codes and principles, such as those pertaining to compulsory heterosexuality and gender duality, by increasing and valuing self-awareness and reflexivity.     

In the service of God and the parish: Professional ideologies and managerial control in the Church of Sweden

Professional ideologies are not only shared norms, beliefs, and values but also ‘operational philosophies’ – actual practices – that both constitute and regulate a professional community. Professional ideologies may both accommodate and even embrace certain managerial practices and counteract them if they are regarded as a threat to professional jurisdictions and other privileges. A study of ministers of the Church of Sweden, the established church in Sweden, demonstrates that new demands for managerial control, deriving from shrinking financial resources as the church loses members, are, on the one hand, recognized in terms of providing a joint perspective on the activities of the parish while, on the other, there is a significant skepticism toward more elaborate evaluation methods and performance metrics. For ministers, religious services must not be regarded as being like any other market-based activity, and the church, as a faith-based organization, needs to carefully position itself vis-à-vis industry and public administration. The study contributes to the professionalism literature, the accounting literature, and the study of faith-based organizations.     

Academic mothers,professional identity and COVID-19: Feminist reflections on career cycles,progression and practice

Based on a collection of auto-ethnographic narratives that reflect our experiences as academic mothers at an Australian university, this paper seeks to illustrate the impact of COVID-19 on our career cycles in order to explore alternative feminist models of progression and practice in Higher Education. Collectively, we span multiple disciplines, parenting profiles, and racial/ethnic backgrounds. Our narratives (initiated in 2019) explicate four focal points in our careers as a foundation for analyzing self-definitions of professional identity: pre- and post-maternity career break; and pre- and post-COVID-19 career. We have modeled this research on a collective feminist research practice that is generative and empowering in terms of self-reflective models of collaborative research. Considering this practice and these narratives, we argue for a de-centering of masculinized career cycle patterns and progression pathways both now and beyond COVID-19. This represents both a challenge to neo-liberal norms of academic productivity, as well as a call to radically enhance institutional gender equality policies and practice.     

Constructing Collective Ethnic Identities: The Case of Second Generation Asian Indians

This paper examines the role of micro-level social interactions in the construction and maintenance of collective ethnic identity, taking as a case in point collective ethnic identity among the children of Asian Indian immigrants. An extensive ethnographic study of the behavior of first and second generation voluntary organizations reveals that the common public rhetoric claiming the second generation is stuck between two worlds bears little resemblance to the identity created as the second generation appropriates and reinterprets the rhetoric of first generation public life to differentiate itself from the immigrant generation. The analysis stresses the overlap of the social processes of collective identity formation and coming of age.     

Intersectional Identities and Conceptions of the Self: The Experience of Transgender People

Transgender people in the United States change genders in relation to androcentric, heterocentric, and middle‐class whitenormative cultural narratives. Drawing on ethnographic data primarily with transgender people of color, I analyze the ways in which gender, race, social class, and sexuality all combine to create specific background identities – intersected identity frames – which others attribute in interaction. We can better understand these intersected identity frames through the experiences of transgender people, who actively engage in identity management. The meanings others attach to specific combinations are foregrounded in the context of transitioning; some audiences employ dominant, white cultural narratives, while others draw upon ethnic cultural narratives. In all cases, transitioning throws the multi‐dimensionality of intersected identity frames into sharp relief against the background of intersecting social and cultural structural arrangements.     

Getting Away from It All: The Construction and Management of Temporary Identities on Vacation

When individuals go on vacation they take on a temporary “vacation identity.” Vacationers use props, behaviors, and interactions with traveling companions to define and bound the experience as separate and different from everyday life. Data are drawn from twenty in‐depth interviews and participant observation with sixty international tourists in China during the summer of 2008. Vacationers' participation in rites and routines and impression management techniques helped them construct a personally meaningful, yet short‐lived identity. The results underscore the influence of others in identity construction and point to the importance of a nonpresent other in creating and presenting identities.