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This article provides first‐hand, empirical data to demonstrate that during the Progressive period, mechanical engineers used labor unrest as a rhetorical device to increase public interest in management systems. This political strategy was necessary, given the objection of manufacturers to the installation of management systems in industrial firms. The study is based on systematic analysis of two magazines in which the study of management was first codified and crystallized: the Engineering Magazine, and the American Machinist.

Free movement of goods, capital, people and services between the twelve countries of the European Community (EC) are the founding principles of the Single European Act. Members of those occupational groups to which the term “professional” is applied are among the people who are now able to offer their services throughout the EC. Steps taken by the Commission to encourage professionals of each member state to an acceptance of their fellows' expertise may well stimulate changes to the institutional forms that have regulated that expertise for the past century or more.

This paper aims to discuss the challenge for the classical idea of professionalism in understanding the Chinese software engineering industry after giving a close insight into the development of this industry as well as individual engineers with a psycho‐societal perspective.

The study starts with the general review of the sociological concept of profession, professional and specialization of knowledge. Together with revealing the critical challenge from the empirical field of software engineering industry regarding its professionalization, a critique of the neglect of subjective agency in classical conception of professionalism in sociology theory and methodology is set out.

A case study with interpretation of the subject's continuously developing identification with their specialization in knowledge and occupation from their narration of career experience reveals the dynamics in this development process relating to individual, social practice and societal factors.

This paper contributes to empirical research of analyzing the professionalization process of software engineering and software engineers in relation to the concept of professionalism, and it contributes theoretically by discussing the challenge of this process to the development of professionalism within this highly knowledge‐based industry in a Chinese societal context.

The first purpose of this study is to respond to Matthews’ (2017) criticisms of Larson's (1977) professional project and accounting historians' past use of Larson (1977) when researching public accountancy professionalization. The second purpose is to use the response to Matthews (2017) as the foundation to construct a model of socio-economic closures of potential use for research and study.

In order to respond to Matthews (2017), the study provides an interpretive review of Larson (1977) and analyses historical professionalization research published in leading accounting journals over three decades. The review and response, together with prior theory contributions, form the foundation for the proposed model of closures.

Matthews’ (2017) criticisms of Larson (1977) and accounting historians' past use of Larson (1977) are, with some exceptions, not well-founded. Larson's (1977) professional project is an ideal model of professionalization and has been used appropriately by accounting historians to introduce and explain rather than a model or test public accountancy professionalization. The analyzed data from research journals are consistent with Larson (1977) in terms of identifiable historical phases of and specific closures actions in the professionalization process.

The study analyses peer-reviewed studies in selected accounting research journals over a defined period.

The study provides a nuanced review of Larson (1977), clarifies evidence of the past use of Larson (1977) by accounting historians, challenges criticism of this use, identifies primary research that focuses on socio-economic closures and proposes a model of such closures for future research and study.

The study contains a comprehensive analysis of peer-reviewed research of public accountancy professionalization and proposes a model of closures inductively derived from empirical evidence and prior theoretical contributions.

The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a qualitative study of software engineers' perception of dress code, career, organizations, and of managers.

The software engineers interviewed work in three European and two US companies. The research is based on ethnographic data, gathered in two longitudinal studies during the period 2001‐2006. The methods used in the study include open‐ended unstructured interviews, participant observation, collection of stories, and shadowing.

It was found that the majority of software engineers denounce formal dress‐codes. The notion of career was defined by them mostly in terms of occupational development. They perceived their own managers as very incompetent. Their view on corporations was also univocally negative. The findings confirm that software engineers form a very distinctive occupation, defining itself in opposition to the organization. However, their distinctiveness may be perceived not only as a manifestation of independence but also contrarily, as simply fulfilling the organizational role they are assigned by management.

The study contributes to the organizational literature by responding to the call for more research on high‐tech workplace practices, and on non‐managerial occupational roles.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on transition of engineering graduates to work. It asks: “What approaches and enabling activities can organisational induction programs use to support successful transition to practice for new-career engineers?”

The paper is grounded in literature review; it discusses central themes in the literature relating to transition to the workplace for Science Technology Engineering Mathematics (STEM) graduates. These include: skills required for the workplace; challenging factors in the transition to workplace; and, disciplinary socialisation.

There is a lack of literature that explores the design of workplace induction programs to assist novice engineers transition to professional work. An emerging topic in the literature is educational institution and employing organisation co-production of induction and transition to work programs.

Much of the literature relating to transition to work programs is from higher education rather than from the viewpoint of the workplace. This review contributes to knowledge of transition to work for early-career engineers from the perspective of workplace development programs.

Building on work that explores the relationship between individual beliefs and ability to recognize discrimination (e.g., Kaiser and Major, 2006), we examine how an adherence to beliefs about gender essentialism, gender egalitarianism, and meritocracy shape one’s interpretation of an illegal act of sexual harassment involving a male supervisor and female subordinate. We also consider whether the role of the gendered culture of engineering (Faulkner, 2009) matters for this relationship. Specifically, we conducted an online survey-experiment asking individuals to report their beliefs about gender and meritocracy and subsequently to evaluate a fictitious but illegal act of sexual harassment in one of two university research settings: an engineering department, a male-dominated setting whose culture is documented as being unwelcoming to women (Hatmaker, 2013; Seron, Silbey, Cech, and Rubineau, 2018), and an ambiguous research setting. We find evidence that the stronger one’s adherence to gender egalitarian beliefs, the greater one’s ability to detect inappropriate behavior and sexual harassment while gender essentialist beliefs play no role in their detection. The stronger one’s adherence to merit beliefs, the less likely they are to view an illegal interaction as either inappropriate or as sexual harassment. We account for respondent knowledge of sexual harassment and their socio-demographic characteristics, finding that the former is more often associated with the detection of inappropriate behavior and sexual harassment at work. We close with a discussion of the transferability of results and policy implications of our findings.

Theoretical reconstruction for the sake of practical political relevance is inherently resistant to the theorisation of a rigorous sociological discipline. Yet, the need for such theoretical reconstruction recurs in history, particularly in times of social and economic crisis when social reconstruction of damaged, fractured and conflict-ridden societies was seen as urgent by both applied sociologists and publics at large.

This paper directs itself to questions regarding the intellectual and political origins of the Swedish, egalitarian, democratic welfare state ideology in the 1930s, and how it came to be theoretically defined in opposition to the overarching binary frameworks of ‘conservative’ capitalism and ‘progressive’ Marxist socialism.

Using McLennan’s notion of a ‘vehicular’ concept, I will attempt to show that the ‘third’ or ‘middle way’ compromise between opposing interests has, since its inception in the earlier parts of the twentieth century, changed over time, and will continue to change, within shifting political contexts and changing practical, political demands to ‘move things on’.

This paper also examines the concept of social planning – social engineering – as a ‘third way’ practical strategy and how it came to be used as a political and theoretical stick by which attack ‘third way’ democracy by both neo-liberal and Marxist theorists.

The paper builds on the author’s previous research on the intellectual and political visions of the Swedish social scientists and reformers, Alva and Gunnar Myrdal, and argues for the continuing importance of theoretical reconstruction and innovation in the preservation of justice and democracy.

The purpose of this paper is to build and enrich theory around professional identity construction by investigating the development of professional identity under conditions of marginalized gender identity. Professional identity is defined by Ibarra and by Schein as one ' s professional self-concept based on attributes, beliefs, values, motives, and experiences. Professional identity construction under conditions of marginalization presents an interesting puzzle. Professional roles are defined as prestigious and provide the role holder with autonomy and, often, a degree of privilege. However, minority professionals are often accorded little prestige and/or privilege because their identities are perceived as inferior.

The research studies narratives by 33 prominent women engineers with careers in management who discuss what it means to be both women and engineers holding high management positions in their organizations.

The research demonstrates that the process of identity construction for women engineers differs in significant ways from that of their male counterparts. The process is centered in redefinition that allows women professionals to construct possible selves and establish positive professional identities: redefinition of occupational rhetorics, disadvantage, and the self.

This study of professional identity construction under conditions of disadvantaged gender identity contributes a new perspective for theorists researching professional identity construction. The results reveal that the development of professional identity for minority women may involve the processes and tasks of redefinition. The tasks in redefinition include redefining disadvantage, redefining the profession, and redefining the self. Moreover, the use of narrative calls for organizational researchers to consider theories in sociology, history, policy, and psychology in the attempts to answer careers questions.

The implications of this research are significant for human resource management practices in the construction and engineering field.

While there is growing interest in professional identity construction (e.g. Clarke et al.), little is known about how marginalization may influence the development of professional identity of minority professionals, such as women managers in engineering.

SOCIAL responsibility is a phrase widely employed today. The mass media harps on it as much as it was prone to do about worker participation. Rarely, however, does anyone analyse it and explain in simple terms what it really means, whether it is desirable and how it can be achieved.