Many professionals, especially organizational ones (managers, controllers, strategists), face difficulties in organizing their professional fields. Work ambiguities and dependencies on outsiders make it difficult to set homogeneous standards and shelter occupational domains. Professionalism tends to be fragmented. It is questionable, however, whether professionalization is a matter of either enforced regulation or fragmented regulatory forms. More connective forms of professional control might enable groups to establish professional domains, despite ambiguities and dependencies. In order to understand professionalization dynamics in public domains and the relevance of connective professionalism, we study the development of one particular field, strategists in government. We show that the professionalization of Dutch strategists is fragmented: strategists are a varied and mobile group; they have different ideas about work; they depend on many other actors and factors. We also show that strategists opt for either more enforced forms of professionalism, or less professional control. Finally, we show how they might establish connective professionalism. By enacting embedded work spaces, strategists can reconfigure their work. This is also relevant for other (organizational) professionals.

It is attractive to frame societal challenges such as climate change, terrorism and migration as 'wicked issues'. Wickedness theory in its various guises has become popular as it connects the uncertain and political nature of issues with hopeful strategies for strengthening networks, trust and learning. In this paper we take a critical approach towards wickedness, advancing three criticisms: (1) the daily experiences of people and their practices are missing from the grand narratives about wickedness, (2) the potential of collaborations and learning to address these problems is romanticized, (3) the implications for managerial and professional perspectives are unclear. We argue that the wickedness literature can be strengthened by further emphasizing situated relations, routines and rituals, adopting the perspective of situated wickedness. This would link insight into grand wickedness to insights into daily ambiguity. We illustrate this argument with two specific cases, (counter)terrorism and forced migration/refugees.

What defines a good civil servant is not self-evident. In fact, when you ask civil servants what it means “to be a good civil servant” and “to do a good job,” you receive differing responses based on the various values that guide the way each individual approaches their job. The differing values can be traced to well-established perspectives in the literatures of public administration, governance, and political science. Each perspective defines “good government” and “being a good civil servant” in different ways, elevating differing values in the process. These perspectives are institutionalized and internalized in the present-day reality of public administration. Therefore, a present-day civil servant works amid a variety of competing perspectives about what “good government” and “being a good civil servant” mean. It is interesting how various perspectives on “good governance” and “being a good civil servant” play out in the working-practice of civil servants: How do values from the various governance perspectives guide the practical actions of civil servants? To answer this question, we conducted a research project to look for patterns in the values that guide the work of civil servants. We distinguished four governance perspectives from literature on governance. We translated these four governance perspectives into typical value statements that guide practical action, and used Q-methodology to survey civil servants with these perspectives as options. We found four distinct profiles of combined values that apparently guide the practical actions of civil servants. The profiles help us better understand the variety of values that guide practical actions of civil servants.

This article compares views of policy officials and members of community-based collectives on the ideal role of government in processes of community self-organization. By using Q methodology, we presented statements on four different governance perspectives: traditional public administration, New Public Management, network governance, and selfgovernance. Perceptions differ about how government should respond to the trend of community self-organization and, in particular, about the primacy of the relationship. Whereas some public servants and collectives favor hands-off involvement of policy officials, others show a preference for a more direct and interactive relation between government and community-based collectives. In general, neither of the two groups have much appreciation for policy instruments based on performance indicators, connected to the New Public Management perspective or strong involvement of politicians, connected the traditional public administration perspective. This article contributes to the discussion of how practitioners see and combine governance perspectives and serve to enable dialogs between practitioners.

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This article examines policy capacity for dealing with the effects of climate change. The case under study is the Delta Program in the Netherlands; a large-scale policy program to prepare the country for current and anticipated effects of climate change that runs until 2050. Using a qualitative case study approach, we examine how the actors involved design analytical capacity, operational capacity and political capacity to deal with the uncertainty and complexity that are inherent in this policy field. The context of climate change necessitates policy capacity that anticipates effects that are in themselves uncertain and ambiguous, span over decades of time, and involve many stakeholders. Our analysis shows how policy capacity was designed to allow for present-day interventions, while also enabling adaptation to new and emerging developments overtime. We conclude our article with theoretical and practical lessons about policy capacity for dealing with long-term uncertainty and complexity.

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This paper contributes to the debate on the future of internal auditing in the context of emerging and intensifying societal, technological and organizational complexity. We apply a critical essay approach to combine the theoretical insights from the field of complexity science and the field of internal auditing. We explore how the condition of intensifying interactive complexity relates to the principles and methodologies of the internal audit profession, now and in the near future. After positioning our paper in the internal audit literature, we argue that interactive complexity poses new challenges and dilemmas to the internal audit profession. We argue that it is crucial for the profession to renew its repertoire to deal with interactive complexity, but also to remain true to the core principles of the profession. We indicate several promising routes for research and debate on the future of internal audit that may help the profession to adapt to intensifying interactive complexity.