Contestation over a Profession's Memory: The UK Pharmacy Profession, 1880–1905

Currie, Graeme; Wild, Andrew; Lockett, Andy

Abstract

We draw on the historical case of the UK pharmacy industry from 1880–1905 to examine how, in the face of a competitive threat to their survival, lower status professionals seek to reinvigorate the memory of their role in providing community service in the public interest. Derived from this, our study reveals how mnemonic work has a nuanced nature in professionalized settings. First, lower status actors enact certain types of mnemonic work because they need to maintain professional purity. Second, to maintain professional purity, lower status professionals also need to carefully sequence their mnemonic work and pay particular attention to the social context within which they are seeking to manipulate collective memory. Our study also shows how, within such a sequencing, for lower status professionals to successfully enact mnemonic work, they need to collectively mobilize their ranks and may engage in entryism to professional bodies dominated by their higher status peers.

Citation

Currie, G., Wild, A., & Lockett, A. (2024). Contestation over a Profession's Memory: The UK Pharmacy Profession, 1880–1905. Journal of Management Studies, https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.13129

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Feb 29, 2024
• Online Publication Date: Jul 30, 2024
• Publication Date: Jul 30, 2024
• Deposit Date: May 22, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 2, 2024
• Journal: Journal of Management Studies
• Print ISSN: 0022-2380
• Electronic ISSN: 1467-6486
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.13129
• Keywords: organizational memory; mnemonic work; professionals; pharmacy; entryism
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/35151911