This article examines how cultural workers interpret and respond to reputational challenges they encounter when leading portfolio careers. Specifically, the portfolio career model involves the cultivation and signalling of adaptability through broad competencies and diverse portfolios comprised of boundary-spanning work. These practices conflict with standards of artistic legitimacy and highlight specialist-generalist tensions, since they can make workers appear to be ‘jacks of all trades, masters of none’ – unskilled, opportunistic dabblers, lacking expertise and artistic integrity. The article draws on 56 interviews with cultural producers working as filmmakers, fashion designers and musicians. Findings show how workers engage in ‘reframing’ to reinterpret the symbolic meanings attached to their behaviours and, in the process, carve out new positions and standards for legitimacy within their fields. Reframing is structured by field and labour market conditions, but also represents the possibility of change as a form of culture in action.

本文研究文化工作者如何领导领导组合职业时遇到的声誉挑战并做出回应。具体而言，投资组合职业模型涉及通过跨领域工作的广泛能力和多样化投资组合来培养和发扬适应能力。这些做法与艺术合法性的标准相抵触，并凸显了专业人士与一般主义者之间的紧张关系，因为它们可能使工人看起来像“千篇一律的杰作，无所不包” –不熟练，机会主义的涉猎者，缺乏专业知识和艺术诚信。这篇文章借鉴了56名对电影制片人，时装设计师和音乐家的文化制作人的采访。调查结果表明，工人如何进行“重新改造”以重新诠释其行为附带的象征意义，并在此过程中，开拓自己领域内合法性的新立场和标准。改组是由田地和劳动力市场条件构成的，但也代表着变革可能会作为一种实际的文化形式发生。