Although business air travel appears to be one of the most visible and tangible aspects of globalisation, until recently it received surprisingly little attention from academic research. This is all the more unfortunate because contemporary theories of social structure involve implicit assumptions about the consequences of extensive physical mobility, assumptions which are unencumbered by any encounter with empirical research. This chapter uses a case study of business travel in the Irish software industry in an attempt to reduce this gap between theorising and empirical investigation. The chapter begins with those theories of social structure which claim to identify new dominant groups in society (‘symbolic analysts’, the ‘creative class’, the ‘new service class’) – groups which are alleged to have new forms of mobility. The second section of the chapter sketches the social structure of the Irish software industry, focusing on the importance of professional and technical workers, putative members of the ‘service class’. After a brief account of the actual research, the chapter then develops a taxonomy of business travellers in the industry: commuters, explorers, nomads and visiting tradesmen (the choice of gender is deliberate). We use this to explore the extent of autonomy enjoyed by different groups of travellers. We stress the extent of routine ‘commuter’ travel in the industry and, focusing on the role of visiting tradesmen, conclude that business travel replicates rather than destabilises managerial hierarchies.
Hierarchies in the air: Varieties of business travel
VECCHI A;
2009
Abstract
Although business air travel appears to be one of the most visible and tangible aspects of globalisation, until recently it received surprisingly little attention from academic research. This is all the more unfortunate because contemporary theories of social structure involve implicit assumptions about the consequences of extensive physical mobility, assumptions which are unencumbered by any encounter with empirical research. This chapter uses a case study of business travel in the Irish software industry in an attempt to reduce this gap between theorising and empirical investigation. The chapter begins with those theories of social structure which claim to identify new dominant groups in society (‘symbolic analysts’, the ‘creative class’, the ‘new service class’) – groups which are alleged to have new forms of mobility. The second section of the chapter sketches the social structure of the Irish software industry, focusing on the importance of professional and technical workers, putative members of the ‘service class’. After a brief account of the actual research, the chapter then develops a taxonomy of business travellers in the industry: commuters, explorers, nomads and visiting tradesmen (the choice of gender is deliberate). We use this to explore the extent of autonomy enjoyed by different groups of travellers. We stress the extent of routine ‘commuter’ travel in the industry and, focusing on the role of visiting tradesmen, conclude that business travel replicates rather than destabilises managerial hierarchies.I documenti in SFERA sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
