MOBILIZING BOURDIEU’S THEORY IN ORGANIZATIONAL RESEARCH

Abstract

PierreBourdieu, French ethnologistand sociologist (1930-2002), is oneof the major thinkersof the twentieth century. The novelty of his approach and the diversity of empirical objects of his research have attracted a large number of studies and research that introduce and discuss its contribution to the knowledge of social reality. By offeringconcepts suchashabitus, fieldand capital, he built a different visionof social reality. Despite his many influential writings, a literature search in the three Academy of Management journals generates only very few citations of his works, indicating that introducing his three key texts, listed above, could help remedy the limited attention to his works from the mainstream of organization and management studies. Inthis paper, we aim to present an overview of selected parts of Bourdieu’s work for explaining how the business and management literature may benefit froma deeper engagement with his contributions