Professional Biographies of Polish Corporation Workers in the Late Capitalist World

Abstract

Referring to a set of narrative interviews being professional biographical interviews with managers and professionals, I would like to present some definite typically patterned professional careers. The course and main phases of the settling into corporate order are identified and described with Fritz Schütze’s analytical tools and categories. The main focus of interest is not only biographical processes of growing-up in corporation, that is the sphere of cognitive, normative and emotional references, but also their relation to the institutional sphere. Simultaneously, I intend therefore to address two types of questions: what type of biographical experiences are we dealing with: biographical plan (an autonomous, self-reflexive and intentional process of planning one’s own actions), institutional pattern (a normative-based process of meeting institutional expectations), trajectory (a suffering-involved process of uncontrollably being subject to external circumstances), metamorphosis (a surprise-driven creative process of change); and what are the ways a biography reflects corporate order, that is, some definite type of the social order in late capitalism, and the related processes of Europeanization, globalization, multiculturalism and transculturalism, as well as the neoliberal economic order?

A Career in IT? The Meanings of a Career at Business Process Outsourcing Centers in Poland from a Biographical Perspective

“…Those three types are as follows: (1) a focus on economic and social stability, (2) a focus on personal growth-such as a transition period in a career, and (3) a focus on personal growth-becoming an expert in IT. Moreover, the biographical analysis allowed the author to note three (sub- Although the research on biographical meanings of work at multinational corporations in Poland (Biały 2015;Haratyk, Biały, and Gońda 2017;Gońda 2019) suggests that inherent socio-economic conditions given by this type of employer facilitate achieving occupational and biographical stability, it seems that among IT specialists who have been interviewed, it is pertinent only to those narrators who have families and strive to anchor their careers in one company, or those who are trying to achieve stability due to biographical events that generated suffering and chaos in their lives. Their narratives focus on economic and social stability.…”

“…The findings suggest that while professionals have the socio-economic conditions to acquire, for example, biographical and occupational stability, it is not unconditional: they must consent to bridge the gap between the spheres of work and non-work in their lives (Gońda 2019). This choice is related to narratives about community, openness, and the promise of self-realization if one is taking responsibility for their self-development (Biały 2015).…”