Client professionalization, a resource for heterogeneous professionals: For a pluralistic account of corporate professions

Abstract

Drawing on the corporate professionalization model, the notion of client professionalization denotes new, client-oriented strategies of legitimization and claims relating to expertise, differentiation, regulation and dissemination. Based on the case of executive coaching in France and its professionalization process, the paper shows how these strategies enable heterogeneous categories of actors to become recognized as professionals. These strategies act as resources because they are grounded on principles other than exclusion and monopoly, such as extension and co-production, which give new value to heterogeneous socialization experiences and multiple activities. The emphasis on client-relationship skills affords atypical professionals’ access to rewarding positions that would otherwise have been unattainable for them. These strategies are important for occupations such as coaching that are practiced by self-employed individuals, who have been overlooked in the literature. They also tend to constitute an appealing access to professionalization, in a context where the power of the market is increasing.