The practice of jurisdictionalizing: How engineers use documents to shape and maintain professional authority

Abstract

This article explores via the concept of professional jurisdiction how engineers shape and maintain authority in practice, and points to the important role of specific professional documents in this practice. Drawing on the sociology of conventions, the article shows how the documents work as standardized and ‘invested’ forms that help professional actors coordinate internally in the profession, as well as compromise, maintain boundaries and forge alliances with actors outside the profession. Empirically, the article analyses historic documents, called writings, from a professional committee under the Danish Society of Engineers, and shows how these documents have helped engineers shape and maintain authority over the Danish field of urban water management.

Professional scaling work: How professional segments claim new jurisdictions in a world of trans-local connections

“…This is indicated by the growing importance of transnational city networks, such as 100 resilient cities and C40 . In Denmark, this devolving of authority to the local political arena is set against a background of national standards and codified practices of managing urban water, maintained in a political–professional alliance between state agencies and the national association of engineers (Meilvang, 2020). The engineering profession has for decades practiced an influential form of scaling work via the so-called Wastewater Committee, where engineers have been able to define de facto standards for good practice of national scope (Meilvang, 2020).…”

“…In Denmark, this devolving of authority to the local political arena is set against a background of national standards and codified practices of managing urban water, maintained in a political-professional alliance between state agencies and the national association of engineers (Meilvang, 2020). The engineering profession has for decades practiced an influential form of scaling work via the so-called Wastewater Committee, where engineers have been able to define de facto standards for good practice of national scope (Meilvang, 2020). With members spanning the various water management sectors and university researchers, the committee enforces political-professional coordination on the national level, linking up directly to the Environmental Protection Agency.…”

Energy System Transition in the Making: Case study of Greater Copenhagen District Heating Network

“…Similarly, Astrid Birnbaum has been employed at HOFOR (and is a former colleague of Morten Stobbe) but is now the director of Høje-Taastrup Forsyning, where Uffe Schleiss (who we hear from the following Chapter 6) moved to after working at VEKS. These professional dynamics tend to reinforce a shared professional frame of reference as well as the creation of a professional 'community' (Hannan and Freeman 1977;DiMaggio and Powell 1983;Lygnerud 2019;Meilvang 2020). Based on these observations, it appears that the regional DH professionals are familiar with one another's ways of working and that they share similar formal and informal codes.…”

“…'hvile-i-sigselv') and "for the benefit of society" (Karnøe and Jensen 2018;Varmelast 2020b). These formal rules, originating from a concern to ensure security of supply at low costs in 1976, may have played a standardizing role and facilitated the coordination of actions between engineers and heat planners (Meilvang 2020). It appears as if these rules have gradually become embedded in the informal set of norms, strengthening not only the convergence of the organizational strategies but also a sense of commitment of the professionals, who, in the course of their careers, may have been working on the same infrastructure, albeit at different organizations, but with a shared aim of delivering secure and affordable heat to households.…”