Study of pre-professionalisation processes: the case of corporate social responsibility in the UK

Abstract

This thesis examines the complex processes of pre-professionalisation, taking corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the UK as its empirical setting. Drawing on insights from distinguished sociologists and historians, including Thomas Kuhn, Pierre Bourdieu, and Andrew Abbott, the thesis illuminates the nuanced experiences of CSR practitioners as they endeavour to establish a recognised professional niche within a broad and rapidly changing occupational landscape. The thesis is structured as three interconnected papers.

The first paper (chapter 2) theorises various emergent occupational groups, such as CSR experts, as pre-professions. Adopting a Kuhnian perspective (Kuhn, 2012), the paper deconstructs different professions into distinct couplings between communities of practice and paradigms. It posits that pre-professions are pre-paradigmatic, possessing unique social and cognitive properties that differentiate them from both classic and semi-professions. The paper identifies messiness and fluidity as inherent characteristics of pre-professionalisation processes. It concludes that pre-professionalisation is both multi-directional and multidimensional, aiming to solidify the field and legitimise the collective existence of aspirant practitioners.

The second paper (chapter 3) examines the pre-professionalisation of British CSR practitioners in their contemporary social and political context. It presents an historical analysis conducted within a Bourdieusian framework (Bourdieu, 1983, 1996). The paper elucidates how the neoliberal reform of the state initiated by the Thatcher Government during the 1980s inspired the emergence of a CSR field. By examining the formation and early development of the focal organisation, the Corporate Responsibility Group (CRG), the paper argues that the self-organisation of CSR practitioners in 1987 was driven by their collective aspiration to achieve legitimate and recognised status in this emerging CSR field. Although CRG made significant progress in the 1990s, the objective of professionalising CSR only emerged when the organisation confronted challenges during the early 2000s. The paper contends that the professional project inaugurated by the CRG in around 2003 was a responsive strategy, aimed at protecting both the organisation and CSR practitioners from disruptive changes introduced by the Labour Government, particularly the assertion that CSR practitioners/professionals ‘stood in the way’ of embedding CSR in the business infrastructure.

The third paper (chapter 3) employs Abbott’s (1995) theoretical framework of ‘boundariesinto- entities’ to scrutinise the intricate, evolving efforts to professionalise CSR. Based on a case study of a professional association (I-CSR), the paper reveals how the pursuit of professionalisation comprises a dynamic trial-and-error process, aimed at configuring various boundaries to form a CSR profession. Contrary to previous literature that identifies professionalisation as an exclusionary-closure process, this paper argues that professionalisation can also be an inclusive-opening process, particularly in fragmented and fast-changing fields such as CSR. The paper elaborates on the non-competitive and transformative nature of boundary work performed by the focal organisation, thereby advancing beyond previous understandings of the role of boundary work in professionalisation.

Taken together, the three papers in this thesis offer significant theoretical and empirical contributions to understandings of professional emergence, professionalisation and the intricate evolution of the CSR field and its practitioners.