Representations and Socialization Dynamics of Corporate Leaders. Analysis of Elite MBA Programs in Mexico

The realm of research about economic elites is burgeoning. In this talk, informed by Michell Lamont’s cultural process perspective and based on semi-structured interviews and participant observation, I will add to that realm sharing the results of a research project focused on elite MBA’s representations and socialization dynamics of corporate leaders in Mexico. On the one hand, such representations are based on three symbolic operations. First, a concealment operation by which top managers are framed under the legitimate category of “leaders”. Second, a celebratory operation through which corporate leaders are depicted as irreplaceable individuals because they possess competences that allegedly no one else have, namely, the skill to emotionally manage subordinate workers. Third, another celebratory procedure by which corporate leaders are portrayed as easily identifiable individuals because of their physical attributes, that is, a way of moving and dressing the body. Jointly, the three operations aid MBAs build a symbolic boundary that represents top executives as legitimate holders of privileged positions that grants them access to different forms of capital. On the other hand, socialization dynamics employed by MBA programs are primarily underpinned on practices of simulation, that is, organized situations in which students must act as if they already occupied the leadership positions to which their aspire. My presentation will expand our current understanding of elite’s distinction practices within a context marked by deep poverty and high economic inequality, whose research about elites, albeit existing, is still scarce.