Work in the legal gray zone: Do tax professionals experience a transformative sensemaking crisis?

Abstract

Using tax professionals as a case study, this article examines whether sense-making has transformative potential in a crisis of legitimacy. The tax consulting industry has transformational experiences due to scandals and increased regulatory efforts. Does meaning matter to professionals in the crisis and are changed forms of sense-making emerging? We address this question by drawing on Axel Honneth's recognition thesis, which goes beyond narrowly defined concepts of meaning and allows us to capture sense-making among tax advisors in a societal context. The framing is appropriate here because the interaction of the recognition spheres of esteem and law can be discussed here in conjunction with issues of social progress. The analysis draws on over 40 qualitative semi-structured interviews with tax advisors. It shows a malleable use of notions of esteem, alongside a simultaneously inclusive and exclusive character of law. A crisis of meaning is only rudimentarily discernible. Instead, some actors react with increased camp formation and fighting mode.