Résumé

Reputation is a prominent control mechanism in contemporary theories of management. Suprisingly, there has been little empirical effort devoted to understanding the way organizations approach individual reputation as a source of normative control. This study seeks to develop new theory of individual reputation as a form of social evaluation (George et al., 2016) with organization-level consequences. It draws on organizational control theory to reflect the complex issues of reputation and evaluation in the knowledge intensive business environment in general, high-order professional services in particular. The foundation for this focus on expert services is the body of evidence that suggests that as work becomes more complex and knowledge-oriented it requires greater reliance on individuals to get work done and signs of individual competence become increasingly crucial. Given the lack of previous empirical research on the subject, the study offers an innovative methodological framework to investigate whether organizations bring individual reputation to light in order to manage it, and the consequences derived from using reputational control as a source of normative control. Results from qualitative analysis show that recognition is not universally accepted in professional fields. There are organizations where individual reputation is entrenched with normative control practices resulting on prestige-driven enthusiasm and liveliness, others where corporate and individual reputation are intertwined, albeit informally handled, and a third group of organizations where the lack of incentives to promote individual signs of credibility and prestige yields to ennui—a general feeling of boredom and dissatisfaction.

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