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Sustaining corporate class consciousness across the newliquid managerial elitein Britain

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posted on 2022-08-04, 22:54 authored by Aeron DavisAeron Davis
This article asks: how is class consciousness and cohesiveness amongst the UK business elite maintained in the twenty-first century? Elite studies traditionally sought to account for the construction and circulation of dominant ideology through exclusive education systems, institutional board interlocks and club memberships. The problem is that business elite membership of all these institutions has been steady declining in recent decades. Contemporary corporate elites now appear more mobile and fragmented in an age of globalization. However, class cohesion amongst business leaders appears as strong as ever after decades of neoliberal policy hegemony. So, how are such ideas, norms and values circulated and maintained? This study tried to answer this question drawing on a set of 30 semi-structured interviews with top UK CEOs and a demographic audit of current FTSE 100 CEOs. The findings suggest that three additional means of achieving business elite coherence have become more significant: professional business education, semi-formal but regular meeting sites, and specialist business media.

History

Preferred citation

Davis, A. (2017). Sustaining corporate class consciousness across the newliquid managerial elitein Britain. The British Journal of Sociology, 68(2), 234-253. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-4446.12257

Journal title

The British Journal of Sociology

Volume

68

Issue

2

Publication date

2017-06-01

Pagination

234-253

Publisher

Wiley

Publication status

Published

Online publication date

2017-04-01

ISSN

0007-1315

eISSN

1468-4446

Language

en