Fragmented fields : professionalisms and work settings in Italian management consultancy

Management consultancy has long been a contested terrain in the sociology of the professions. Although the professionalism of management consultants has always been emphasised by practitioners themselves, the lack of a strong community of peers has been an impediment to their professionalisation. In this article, I argue that professionalism is not the outcome of a process of regulation and institutionalization, but that it has to be conceived a discourse comprising norms, worldviews and values that define what is appropriate for an individual to be considered a competent and recognised member of this community. Given the diversity characterising the field, there are multiple discourses surrounding professionalism of management consultants, and these discourses are shaped by work settings. Work settings are a combination of the type of organization (professional partnership or professional service firm) and the employment status (employee or self-employed). Drawing on the empirical evidence from various work settings (professional service firms, professional partnership and selfemployment), I investigate four clusters of practitioners identified in 55 biographical and semistructured interviews conducted with management consultants in Italy. Four types of professionalism emerge from the clusters. Organizing professionalism is the sole professionalism which appears in all work settings. Other discourses (corporate, commercialised and hybrid professionalism) are context-dependent and more likely to be found in specific work settings