Understanding the professional project manager: Cosmopolitans, locals and identity work

Further this research implies that both professional bodies and employers need to understand how to navigate these discourses. This reveals dual challenges. For the professions the challenge is to convince locals to become cosmopolitans by adopting the trappings of professionalism but without contesting too far the sovereignty of the corporation as employer. For corporations, the challenge is to capture the broad expertise of the cosmopolitan without compromising their affiliation to their employer. Ironically both institutions are complicit, often working together to meet different ends. Finally this research suggests that project management is rich in identity work and that this may provide an important lens to analyse the ongoing evolution of the wider management professions, specifically in relation to the compromises that professionalism brings to this particular form of expert labour.