IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v33y2019i2p326-335.html

Losing the Faith: Public Sector Work and the Erosion of Career Calling

Author

Listed:
  • Laurie Cohen

    (University of Nottingham, UK)

  • Joanne Duberley

    (University of Birmingham, UK)

  • Pete Smith

Abstract

This article tells the story of Pete, a welfare rights adviser who worked his way up to be Assistant Director of Social Services in a Midlands local authority. Pete joined the public sector with a sense of calling and a belief that local government could create positive social change. Over the next 25 years, however, Pete’s calling was increasingly challenged as his job and the context in which he worked were transformed. This article focuses on the ways in which Pete navigated the system in an attempt to ‘keep the faith’, before eventually taking early retirement.

Suggested Citation

  • Laurie Cohen & Joanne Duberley & Pete Smith, 2019. "Losing the Faith: Public Sector Work and the Erosion of Career Calling," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 33(2), pages 326-335, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:33:y:2019:i:2:p:326-335
    DOI: 10.1177/0950017017746906
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0950017017746906
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0950017017746906?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dobrow, Shoshana R. & Tosti-Kharas, Jennifer, 2012. "Listen to your heart? Calling and receptivity to career advice," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 59409, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tuure Haarjärvi & Sari Laari-Salmela, 2022. "Examining the Role of Dignity in the Experience of Meaningfulness: a Process-Relational View on Meaningful Work," Humanistic Management Journal, Springer, vol. 7(3), pages 417-440, December.
    2. Stephanos Anastasiadis & Anica Zeyen, 2022. "Families under Pressure: The Costs of Vocational Calling, and What Can Be Done about Them," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 36(5), pages 841-857, October.
    3. Wolfgang Bichler‐Riedl & Stefan Gold, 2025. "Implications of Deep Meaningfulness for Sustainability: Reimagining the Literature on Vocational Calling," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(5), pages 7591-7602, October.
    4. Stephen Mustchin & Miguel Martínez Lucio, 2023. "The fragmenting occupation of labour inspection and the degradation of regulatory and enforcement work inside the British state," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 44(2), pages 526-546, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.

      More about this item

      Keywords

      ;
      ;
      ;
      ;
      ;

      Statistics

      Access and download statistics

      Corrections

      All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:33:y:2019:i:2:p:326-335. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

      If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

      If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

      If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

      For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/ .

      Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

      IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.