NAVIGATING PROFESSIONAL CAREERS AND INTERNAL ACTIVISM: A BOURDIEUSIAN LENS
Research output: Journal contributions › Conference article in journal › Research › peer-review
Standard
In: Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings, Vol. 2025, No. 1, 2025.
Research output: Journal contributions › Conference article in journal › Research › peer-review
Harvard
APA
Vancouver
Bibtex
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
T1 - NAVIGATING PROFESSIONAL CAREERS AND INTERNAL ACTIVISM
T2 - 85th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management - AOM 2025
AU - Hug, Katharina
AU - Chudzikowski, Katharina
AU - Gustafsson, Stefanie
N1 - Conference code: 85
PY - 2025
Y1 - 2025
N2 - Studies of careers and professions suggest that professionals increasingly seek to positively impact society through internal activism but offer limited insights into how they integrate activism in their highly structured and normative professional careers. To address this, we draw on Bourdieu’s theoretical ideas and theorise the different ways professionals construe internal activism in relation to professional career fields. We interviewed 58 consultants who engage in internal climate change activism in one globally operating professional service firm (PSF). Our analysis identifies two groups: Instrumental careerists, who translate internal activism into symbolic capital for internal career progression, and societal activists, who accumulate career capital but rarely transform it into symbolic career capital valued in the field. Our analysis reveals how differences in individuals’ dispositions and career practices underlie this distinction. These findings contribute to scholarship on careers and internal activism by offering a socially situated perspective grounded in Bourdieu’s work and developing insights into the construal of responsible careers in professional organizations through internal activism. We also illustrate why, although internal activism can offer a space for agency for professionals to engage in societal issues, it rarely challenges the rules of the game in PSFs.
AB - Studies of careers and professions suggest that professionals increasingly seek to positively impact society through internal activism but offer limited insights into how they integrate activism in their highly structured and normative professional careers. To address this, we draw on Bourdieu’s theoretical ideas and theorise the different ways professionals construe internal activism in relation to professional career fields. We interviewed 58 consultants who engage in internal climate change activism in one globally operating professional service firm (PSF). Our analysis identifies two groups: Instrumental careerists, who translate internal activism into symbolic capital for internal career progression, and societal activists, who accumulate career capital but rarely transform it into symbolic career capital valued in the field. Our analysis reveals how differences in individuals’ dispositions and career practices underlie this distinction. These findings contribute to scholarship on careers and internal activism by offering a socially situated perspective grounded in Bourdieu’s work and developing insights into the construal of responsible careers in professional organizations through internal activism. We also illustrate why, although internal activism can offer a space for agency for professionals to engage in societal issues, it rarely challenges the rules of the game in PSFs.
KW - Management studies
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=105009406456&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.5465/AMPROC.2025.247bp
DO - 10.5465/AMPROC.2025.247bp
M3 - Conference article in journal
AN - SCOPUS:105009406456
VL - 2025
JO - Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings
JF - Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings
SN - 0065-0668
IS - 1
Y2 - 25 July 2025 through 29 July 2025
ER -