Collegiality as political work: Professions in today’s world of organizations

Abstract

Collegiality is frequently portrayed as an inherent characteristic of professions, associated with normative expectations autonomously determined and regulated among peers. However, in advanced modernity other modes of governance responding to societal expectations and increasing state reliance on professional expertise often appear in tension with conditions of collegiality. This article argues that collegiality is not an immutable and inherent characteristic of the governance of professional work and organizations; rather, it is the result of the ability of a profession to operationalize the normative, relational, and structural requirements of collegiality at work. This article builds on different streams of scholarship to present a dynamic approach to collegiality based on political work by professionals to protect, maintain, and reformulate collegiality as a core set of principles governing work. Productive resistance and co-production are explored for their contribution to collegiality in this context, enabling accommodation between professions and organizations to achieve collective objectives and serving as a vector of change and adaptation of professional work in contemporary organizations. Engagement in co-production influences the ability to materialize collegiality at work, just as the maintenance and transformation of collegiality will operate in a context where professions participate and negotiate compromises with others legitimate modes of governance. Our arguments build on recent studies and hypotheses concerning the interface of professions and organizations to reveal the political work that underlies the affirmation and re-affirmation of collegiality as a mode of governance of work based on resistance and co-production.

Sustaining a Collegiate Environment: Colleagueship, Community and Choice at an Anonymous Business School

“…From this perspective, ABS was almost unanimously considered a collegiate place due to the positive experiences people had with receiving support from their peers, both in professional and personal matters. It is important, however, to recognise that such collegial behaviour, intrinsically linked to the shared institutional and professional context (Denis et al, 2019;Hatfield, 2006), does not represent collegiality in its wider sense as a system of governance nor as institutional modus operandi. Even if the focus is kept on the horizontal aspects of collegiality alone, there were significant tensions and challenges emerging in our participants' accounts.…”

Мир Профессий В Контексте Труда И Занятости: Пандемическое И Цифровое Вертиго

“…Последствия интервенций неолиберального эконометрического мышления в пространство труда профессионалов оказываются неожиданными и могут вести к разрушению ряда базовых нормативных принципов профессионализма, одним из которых является коллегиальность. С одной стороны, она позволяла говорить о профессионалах в терминологии сообществ с их моральными требованиями и этическими ограничениями, а с другой -это агентный ответ профессионалов [Denis et al, 2019] на изменения в организационном контексте их труда. Коллегиальность никогда не могла полностью заменить бюрократические правила и принципы, но была практикой «мягкого» руководства в организациях с преобладанием в них профессионалов, подобно университетам и исследовательским центрам.…”

Research on professional organizations: A review of theoretical traditions, themes, methods and locations

“…Denis et al. (2019) are concerned with collegiality. Boussebaa and Faulconbridge (2019) deal with globalization; Blok et al.…”