Risky Business: How Professionals and Professional Fields (Must) Deal with Organizational Issues

Abstract

As professionals belong to occupational systems but also increasingly work inside organizations, new linkages between occupational and organizational domains are required, but they are difficult to develop. Occupational principles and professional standards are usually considered to be at odds with managerial and organizational control principles. This generates academic and practical dualisms. Either a return to professionalism is advocated in order to protect occupational spaces and 'rescue' professional work, or there is a move beyond professionalism in order to restrict autonomies and discipline professional work. This article argues that both stances are unsatisfactory and that new forms of organized professionalism are called for. Changing circumstances force professional services to respond to external changes that call for organizational capacities, also inside professional domains: (a) professionals develop new work preferences and seek organized work conditions; (b) professionals face new cases, which are difficult to categorize and call for well-organized multi-professional acts; (c) due to critical attention for case treatment and incidents, professionals face new risks that have to be managed. The article shows how these realities are incorporated in professional practices -albeit slowly -and it draws normative conclusions. Professionals must take organizing and managing more seriously and will have to develop organizational capacities. In addition, connective organizational standards must be established in order to strengthen the viability and legitimacy of professional services in demanding times.

Enhancing Safety Performance: Non-technical Skills and a Modicum of Chronic Unease

“…Professionalism is a newer conceptualisation, reflecting an extended range of occupations now seen as professions and the idea of 'professional standards/professional behaviour' being seen as part of many modern jobs. Sociologists have engaged in extended debate about professionalism versus managerialism, normative versus ideological interpretations, the rise of professionalism and its implications for organisational life (Evetts 2003;Noordegraaf 2011). In relation to safety, we can distinguish between:…”

Inside service-intensive projects: Analyzing inbuilt tensions

“…The relationship between professional and occupational groups is often adversarial (Farrel and Morris, 2003;Noordegraaf, 2011;Waring and Currie, 2009) because the legitimacy of a professional is based on a mix of specialist competencies and abstract knowledge (Abbott, 1988), whereas the latter's power rests in formal authority. This dilemma is described by Hodgson and Muzio (2011:116) who discuss the role of a project manager, one of the most typical occupational roles in a project business, in the following manner: "the extent to which they (project managers) can claim an independent expertise can be considered dubious with much of their knowledge being contextual, situated and embedded in organizationally specific processes, procedures and frameworks".…”

“…First, the conceptual research framework (Fig 1) devised in this study provides an institutional theory perspective (e.g., Bresnen & Marshall, 2011;DiMaggio and Powell, 1983;Scott, 2008a) to the occupational and professional groups in projects (Farrel and Morris, 2003;Hodgson and Muzio, 2011;Noordegraaf, 2011;Waring and Currie, 2009), and thus enables the analyze of intergroup tension inbuilt to four business processes. Second, adopting the perspective of a project employee and interpreting the tension through their eyes (Table 2) allows managers to comprehend how profoundly these institutional logics are rooted in the organization and manifested in stereotypes, perceptions of trust, internal politics and lack of cooperation.…”

Does Economic Rationalization Decrease or Increase Accounting Professionals’ Occupational Values?

“…To develop a more profound appreciation of the values of professionalism, policy makers in universities could supplement the teaching of the basic principles of accounting ethics with an interdisciplinary study of the role of professionals in organizations and society that integrates and compares the insights of the sociological, institutional and managerial perspectives on professions (Abbott 1988;Freidson 2001;Noordegraaf 2011;Muzio et al 2013). This interdisciplinary learning approach is likely to raise accountants' awareness of the normative conflicts between the values of professionalism and the values of economic rationality that underpin the economic rationalization process.…”