‘Unbecoming’ a Professional: The Role of Memory during Field Transitions in Japan and the USA

Ricardo Azambuja (), Lisa Baudot, Saori Matsubara, Takahiro Endo and Dana Wallace
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Ricardo Azambuja: Rennes SB - Rennes School of Business
Lisa Baudot: HEC Paris - Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales
Saori Matsubara: Dokkyo University
Dana Wallace: UCF - University of Central Florida [Orlando]

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Abstract: Existing scholarship documents how, in becoming a professional, such as a partner in a professional services firm (PSF), one's habitus comes into alignment with field expectations. Less understood, however, is what happens to habitus and, relatedly, to professionals' accumulated cultural, social, and economic capitals, as individuals 'unbecome' a professional and transition away from the field. We examine this overlooked phenomenon via individual and focus group interviews with partners retired from PSFs in Japan and the USA. We find that, in unbecoming a professional, aspects of ex-partners' habitus may be misaligned with the field they operate in, prompting a hysteresis effect. The lack of fit of habitus with one's current circumstances is induced by ex-partners' nostalgia regarding accumulated capitals, that is, wistful memories capable of structuring present and future actions. By demonstrating how nostalgia informs ex-partners' experience of the hysteresis effect, this paper contributes to understandings of the importance of memory when detaching from one's profession. Furthermore, given that our investigation is carried out across two distinct cultural settings, we also theorize how country-specific historical work arrangements may condition memory in professionals' unbecoming from PSFs.

Keywords: memory; nostalgia; social capital; unbecoming; hysteresis effect; habitus; economic capital; cultural capital; Bourdieu; accounting professionals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-10-14
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Published in Journal of Management Studies, 2024, 63, pp.1837 - 1873. ⟨10.1111/joms.13147⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05628672

DOI: 10.1111/joms.13147

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