The Calculated and the Avowed: Techniques of Discipline and Struggles Over Identity in Big Six Public Accounting Firms

An ethnographic field study in Big Six public accounting firms, where management by objectives and mentoring are used as techniques of control, examines how organizations transform professionals into disciplined and self-disciplining organizational members whose work goals, language, and lifestyle come to reflect the imperatives of the organization. The study shows that the scope and effect of these techniques shaped the identities of organizational participants but that the discourse of professional autonomy fueled resistance to these pressures toward conformity. Implications of these results are discussed as they relate to conflict between professionals and organizations and to the critical study of organizations.