Responding to recent calls for more context and history in studying (semi-)professionals in the public sector, this article examines the emergence of hybrid professional roles along with large-scale reforms of Dutch healthcare and education since 1965. Using a theoretical framework based on public management literature and key professional attributes, the article shows how hybrid role expectations are developed by accumulation rather than replacement of successive reform models. Within a single national context, it also highlights considerable sectoral variation in how reform affects professionals' roles, suggesting a complex mutual relationship between reform and professions rather than a one-sided policy impact.

This paper investigates the changed roles and strategies of professionals in a context of hybrid welfare state reform. This context exposes public professionals to market regulation and rationalization (new public management), and simultaneously expects them to work across professional borders to co-produce public services together with their clients, colleagues and other stakeholders (new public governance). Adopting a comparative perspective, we studied different types of professionals for their views on the implications of this reform mix on their work. Hence, we investigate ‘strategy’ at the macro level of public sector reform and at the micro level of professionals’ responses. The study is based on literature and policy documents, participatory observations and especially (group) interviews with professionals across Dutch hospitals, secondary schools and local agencies for welfare, care or housing. We found that professionals across these sectors, despite their different backgrounds and status, meet highly similar challenges and tensions related to welfare state reform. Moreover, we show that these professionals are not simply passive ‘victims’ of the hybrid context of professionalism, but develop own coping strategies to deal with tensions between different reform principles. The study contributes to understanding new professional roles and coping strategies in welfare state reform, in a context of changing relationships between professions and society.

Against a background of public management reform strengthening managerialism, this study examines the professional identity of secondary school teachers in the Netherlands. It uses the Good Work framework of excellence, ethics and engagement to explore what teachers think they should doself-imageversus what they dorole. It finds that managerial reforms in secondary education enhance a discrepancy between these two sides of teachers' identity. The study discovers three strategies teachers employ to navigate the emerging tensions. These findings contribute to our understanding of how public management reform plays out in both teachers' beliefs and practices.

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Literature on the consequences of managerial reform for professionals in public services has often taken the professions as universal phenomenon, unaffected by sectoral heterogeneity. However, focusing on professionals’ own perspectives, this study notes important similarities and variations between professionals from two domains—GPs and teachers. The findings are attributed to professional identity values of excellence, ethics, and engagement, against which reforms were directed, and to the capacity of different professional groups to develop strategies based on these values. Suggesting that the professional identity of specific professions is key creates different conditions and consequences for introducing new management practices.

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De pandemie als spiegel Bestuurskundig leren van de aanpak van de COVID-19-crisisMyrthe van Delden, Wiljan Hendrikx, Shelena Keulemans & Martijn van der Steen* * T.A.M. van Delden, MSc is onderzoeker en opleidingsmanager van de Nederlandse School voor Openbaar Bestuur (NSOB). Dr. P.M.A. Hendrikx is onderzoeker en opleidingsmanager van de NSOB. Dr. S.A.C. Keulemans is universitair docent Bestuurskunde aan de Radboud Universiteit. Prof. dr. M.A. van der Steen is bijzonder hoogleraar bij de Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, en is tevens co-decaan en adjunct-directeur van de NSOB en directeur van de Denktank. 1 Rutte, M. (2020, 12 maart). We hebben iedereen nodig, 17 miljoen mensen. Persconferentie: https:// nos.nl/video/2326873-rutte-we-hebben-iedereen-nodig-17-miljoen-mensen. Dit artikel uit Bestuurskunde is gepubliceerd door Boom bestuurskunde en is bestemd voor anonieme bezoeker

Based on an extensive literature review, this article explores the impact of strategic renewal in the public sector on the roles and skills of public professionals. Findings show that successive reforms of New Public Management and New Public Governance have resulted in hybrid role requirements that go beyond the often-debated dichotomy between professionalism and management. Based on our review, we could distinguish four sets of skills for professionals, linking traditional professional expertise to competences for networking and co-creation. Implications for future research are discussed.