This article contributes to the debate about how more recent professions, especially those related to management, might achieve a semblance of ‘professionalism’ in the absence of the conditions that facilitated the creation of the traditional professions such as medicine, law or accounting in the 19th century. Much of the recent literature has either argued that these professions had to rely on some form of ‘image professionalism’ or that the professionalization process was ‘captured’ by the dominant firms within the professional field, with the aim of creating corporate, firm-internal rather than open labor markets for these professionals. Building on Bourdieu’s notions of symbolic and social capital, we suggest an alternative pathway to professionalization in stratified professional fields. We namely argue that a career at one of the ‘elite’ professional service firms (PSFs) can provide privileged access to positions at other firms within the same field. Hence, such a career constitutes a form of closure regime and allows, at least to some degree, the external labor mobility so typical of traditional professions. We explore this alternative pathway to professionalization by analyzing a novel and unique historical data set of former McKinsey consultants, identifying a number of boundary conditions that seem to facilitate such intraprofessional careers and others, which, over time, might weaken it. We conclude by pointing to a number of broader contributions from our research.
{"title":"Professionalization through symbolic and social capital: Evidence from the careers of elite consultants","authors":"M. Kipping, F. Bühlmann, Thomas David","doi":"10.1093/jpo/joz014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jpo/joz014","url":null,"abstract":"This article contributes to the debate about how more recent professions, especially those related to management, might achieve a semblance of ‘professionalism’ in the absence of the conditions that facilitated the creation of the traditional professions such as medicine, law or accounting in the 19th century. Much of the recent literature has either argued that these professions had to rely on some form of ‘image professionalism’ or that the professionalization process was ‘captured’ by the dominant firms within the professional field, with the aim of creating corporate, firm-internal rather than open labor markets for these professionals. Building on Bourdieu’s notions of symbolic and social capital, we suggest an alternative pathway to professionalization in stratified professional fields. We namely argue that a career at one of the ‘elite’ professional service firms (PSFs) can provide privileged access to positions at other firms within the same field. Hence, such a career constitutes a form of closure regime and allows, at least to some degree, the external labor mobility so typical of traditional professions. We explore this alternative pathway to professionalization by analyzing a novel and unique historical data set of former McKinsey consultants, identifying a number of boundary conditions that seem to facilitate such intraprofessional careers and others, which, over time, might weaken it. We conclude by pointing to a number of broader contributions from our research.","PeriodicalId":45650,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Professions and Organization","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2019-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/jpo/joz014","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42166538","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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.
{"title":"Collegiality as political work: Professions in today’s world of organizations","authors":"J. Denis, G. Veronesi, C. Régis, Sabrina Germain","doi":"10.1093/jpo/joz016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jpo/joz016","url":null,"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.","PeriodicalId":45650,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Professions and Organization","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2019-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/jpo/joz016","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45900412","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
As a means by which actors justify beliefs and practices, rhetoric has a key institutional role. In contested settings, where multiple groups and the logics associated with them interact, research has highlighted rhetorical strategies that exploit rival systems. The account we develop expands on these ideas and suggests they embrace forms of counter-rhetoric, or arguments that delegitimize a rival’s logic and refine and reframe others’ values. We use these categories to explore the case of a local mental health service, an area of health policy known for problematic diagnosis and treatment. Here groups of medical and social-care providers were required to work together in a system of intensive inter-professional relations and clashing logics. Our analysis focuses on this interaction, exploring the language-based nature of logics and sources of conflict between logics that are asserted in counter-rhetorical forms.
{"title":"Counter-rhetoric and sources of enduring conflict in contested organizational fields: A case study of mental health professionals","authors":"R. Fincham, T. Forbes","doi":"10.1093/jpo/joz013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jpo/joz013","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 As a means by which actors justify beliefs and practices, rhetoric has a key institutional role. In contested settings, where multiple groups and the logics associated with them interact, research has highlighted rhetorical strategies that exploit rival systems. The account we develop expands on these ideas and suggests they embrace forms of counter-rhetoric, or arguments that delegitimize a rival’s logic and refine and reframe others’ values. We use these categories to explore the case of a local mental health service, an area of health policy known for problematic diagnosis and treatment. Here groups of medical and social-care providers were required to work together in a system of intensive inter-professional relations and clashing logics. Our analysis focuses on this interaction, exploring the language-based nature of logics and sources of conflict between logics that are asserted in counter-rhetorical forms.","PeriodicalId":45650,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Professions and Organization","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2019-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/jpo/joz013","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43717316","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Drawing on the ‘corporate professionalization’ model (Kipping, Kirkpatrick, and Muzio 2006; Muzio et al. 2011) of new strategies adopted by managerial occupations, this article explores professionalization processes taking into account the role of the client. Based on an analysis of the professionalization of executive coaching, it demonstrates the influence of the client organizations in such processes, at a collective and institutional level. This influence tends to favor new professionalization strategies of differentiation, regulation, and dissemination. The article suggests that this influence does not necessarily limit the power of corporate professionals, at least in the institutionalization phase, especially if we redefine power as consisting ‘not in restriction and exclusion, but in extension and linking’ (Eyal 2013: 876). Framed primarily to analyze corporate occupations practiced by independent professionals, the ‘client professionalization’ model suggests better taking into account the influence of client organizations in further research on professionalization processes, in line with the research conducted on ‘client capture’ (Leicht and Fennell 2001; Dinovitzer, Gunz, and Gunz, 2014). By studying an emergent corporate profession that is practiced by self-employed, solo practitioners and freelancers, which have been largely overlooked in the literature, this article contributes overall to a more diverse understanding of corporate professions and the ways in which they professionalize.
{"title":"Towards a ‘client professionalization’ process? The case of the institutionalization of executive coaching in France","authors":"Scarlett Salman","doi":"10.1093/jpo/joz012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jpo/joz012","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Drawing on the ‘corporate professionalization’ model (Kipping, Kirkpatrick, and Muzio 2006; Muzio et al. 2011) of new strategies adopted by managerial occupations, this article explores professionalization processes taking into account the role of the client. Based on an analysis of the professionalization of executive coaching, it demonstrates the influence of the client organizations in such processes, at a collective and institutional level. This influence tends to favor new professionalization strategies of differentiation, regulation, and dissemination. The article suggests that this influence does not necessarily limit the power of corporate professionals, at least in the institutionalization phase, especially if we redefine power as consisting ‘not in restriction and exclusion, but in extension and linking’ (Eyal 2013: 876). Framed primarily to analyze corporate occupations practiced by independent professionals, the ‘client professionalization’ model suggests better taking into account the influence of client organizations in further research on professionalization processes, in line with the research conducted on ‘client capture’ (Leicht and Fennell 2001; Dinovitzer, Gunz, and Gunz, 2014). By studying an emergent corporate profession that is practiced by self-employed, solo practitioners and freelancers, which have been largely overlooked in the literature, this article contributes overall to a more diverse understanding of corporate professions and the ways in which they professionalize.","PeriodicalId":45650,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Professions and Organization","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2019-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/jpo/joz012","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49253002","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Management consultancy has long been a contested terrain in the sociology of the professions. Although the professionalism of management consultants has always been emphasized by practitioners themselves, the lack of a strong community of peers has been an impediment to their professionalization. In this article, I argue that professionalism is not the outcome of a process of regulation and institutionalization but that it has to be conceived a discourse comprising norms, worldviews, and values that define what is appropriate for an individual to be considered a competent and recognized member of this community. Given the diversity characterizing the field, there are multiple discourses surrounding professionalism of management consultants, and these discourses are shaped by work settings. Work settings are a combination of the type of organization professional partnership or professional service firm and the employment status (employee or self-employed). Drawing on the empirical evidence from various work settings (professional service firms, professional partnership, and self-employment), I investigate four clusters of practitioners identified in 55 biographical and semi-structured interviews conducted with management consultants in Italy. Four types of professionalism emerge from the clusters. Organizing professionalism is the sole professionalism that appears in all work settings. Other discourses (corporate, commercialized, and hybrid professionalism) are context-dependent and more likely to be found in specific work settings.
{"title":"Fragmented fields: Professionalisms and work settings in Italian management consultancy","authors":"Lara Maestripieri","doi":"10.1093/jpo/joz011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jpo/joz011","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Management consultancy has long been a contested terrain in the sociology of the professions. Although the professionalism of management consultants has always been emphasized by practitioners themselves, the lack of a strong community of peers has been an impediment to their professionalization. In this article, I argue that professionalism is not the outcome of a process of regulation and institutionalization but that it has to be conceived a discourse comprising norms, worldviews, and values that define what is appropriate for an individual to be considered a competent and recognized member of this community. Given the diversity characterizing the field, there are multiple discourses surrounding professionalism of management consultants, and these discourses are shaped by work settings. Work settings are a combination of the type of organization professional partnership or professional service firm and the employment status (employee or self-employed). Drawing on the empirical evidence from various work settings (professional service firms, professional partnership, and self-employment), I investigate four clusters of practitioners identified in 55 biographical and semi-structured interviews conducted with management consultants in Italy. Four types of professionalism emerge from the clusters. Organizing professionalism is the sole professionalism that appears in all work settings. Other discourses (corporate, commercialized, and hybrid professionalism) are context-dependent and more likely to be found in specific work settings.","PeriodicalId":45650,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Professions and Organization","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2019-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/jpo/joz011","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47559338","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
L. Bierman, R. Brymer, Scott B. Dust, Hyunseo Hwang
Social capital deterioration in the USA, and indeed throughout the world, has had considerable impact on professional service firms (PSFs). Governmental entities at various levels have enacted new laws and regulations (e.g. the Sarbanes Oxley and Dodd-Frank Acts in the USA) to help ameliorate this situation, but to relatively little avail. Traditional gatekeeping functions of PSFs seem to be deteriorating. Is there hope for the future? This article addresses that issue in the context of work by drawing on the insight and research of Robert Putnam and John Coffee and encouraging advancement of multiple agency theory and governance for today’s world.
{"title":"Gatekeeping and our moral fabric: Has social capital deterioration vanquished professional oversight?","authors":"L. Bierman, R. Brymer, Scott B. Dust, Hyunseo Hwang","doi":"10.1093/jpo/joz010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jpo/joz010","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Social capital deterioration in the USA, and indeed throughout the world, has had considerable impact on professional service firms (PSFs). Governmental entities at various levels have enacted new laws and regulations (e.g. the Sarbanes Oxley and Dodd-Frank Acts in the USA) to help ameliorate this situation, but to relatively little avail. Traditional gatekeeping functions of PSFs seem to be deteriorating. Is there hope for the future? This article addresses that issue in the context of work by drawing on the insight and research of Robert Putnam and John Coffee and encouraging advancement of multiple agency theory and governance for today’s world.","PeriodicalId":45650,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Professions and Organization","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2019-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/jpo/joz010","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45581367","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article advances our understanding of network internationalization by professional service firms. We address gaps in the literature concerning the various kinds of networks; their role in international strategies, including learning, and knowledge transfer; and their structural and governance mechanisms. Concentrating on the network dependency of 177 European law firms, we analyse and summarize their structural and governance tendencies. Then we develop a typology of seven international peer networks. The seven types identified are: ‘Loose’, a network of disconnected actors, where exchange is mostly limited to referrals; ‘Constricted’, referral-based networks aimed at optimizing exchange flows and cooperation; ‘Focused’, networks aimed at a specific sector or specialty; ‘Friends’, informal, non-exclusive networks; ‘Exclusives’, formal alliances or cooperative relations; ‘Monogamous’, well-established, broad, longstanding, and close relationships; and ‘Isolated’, project-related alliances of limited duration. We conclude with a discussion that considers this typology in light of possible intangible outcomes of membership and proposes how this might be extended in future research.
{"title":"Opening the black box of PSF network internationalization: An exploration of law firm networks","authors":"Rany Salvoldi, David M. Brock","doi":"10.1093/jpo/joz015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jpo/joz015","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article advances our understanding of network internationalization by professional service firms. We address gaps in the literature concerning the various kinds of networks; their role in international strategies, including learning, and knowledge transfer; and their structural and governance mechanisms. Concentrating on the network dependency of 177 European law firms, we analyse and summarize their structural and governance tendencies. Then we develop a typology of seven international peer networks. The seven types identified are: ‘Loose’, a network of disconnected actors, where exchange is mostly limited to referrals; ‘Constricted’, referral-based networks aimed at optimizing exchange flows and cooperation; ‘Focused’, networks aimed at a specific sector or specialty; ‘Friends’, informal, non-exclusive networks; ‘Exclusives’, formal alliances or cooperative relations; ‘Monogamous’, well-established, broad, longstanding, and close relationships; and ‘Isolated’, project-related alliances of limited duration. We conclude with a discussion that considers this typology in light of possible intangible outcomes of membership and proposes how this might be extended in future research.","PeriodicalId":45650,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Professions and Organization","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2019-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/jpo/joz015","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42497126","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Professions have been traditionally understood as an alternative way of organizing work that stands in opposition to the corporate or bureaucratic organizational form. Increasingly, however, corporations are seen to be the source of new forms of expert knowledge and occupational categories. Yet we have little understanding of how expert judgement forms and is legitimated inside a large organization. In this study, we examine the emergence of standards of professional judgement in a government organization. Using archival and interview data between 2000 and 2012 we examine how experts in the Danish Film Institute generated professional standards of decision making against the backdrop of intense bureaucratic control. Our analysis demonstrates that norms of professional judgement emerge in a process that is inextricably linked to the emergence of professional role identities. Our core theoretical contribution is the discovery that the legitimacy work of managerial professions operates in two spheres; by first grounding claims of professional legitimacy in broad societal norms, and second, by grounding claims of professional identity in localized but increasingly abstract expressions of professional expertise.
{"title":"Professional judgment and legitimacy work in an organizationally embedded profession","authors":"R. Suddaby, Frans Bévort, J. Pedersen","doi":"10.1093/JPO/JOZ007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/JPO/JOZ007","url":null,"abstract":"Professions have been traditionally understood as an alternative way of organizing work that stands in opposition to the corporate or bureaucratic organizational form. Increasingly, however, corporations are seen to be the source of new forms of expert knowledge and occupational categories. Yet we have little understanding of how expert judgement forms and is legitimated inside a large organization. In this study, we examine the emergence of standards of professional judgement in a government organization. Using archival and interview data between 2000 and 2012 we examine how experts in the Danish Film Institute generated professional standards of decision making against the backdrop of intense bureaucratic control. Our analysis demonstrates that norms of professional judgement emerge in a process that is inextricably linked to the emergence of professional role identities. Our core theoretical contribution is the discovery that the legitimacy work of managerial professions operates in two spheres; by first grounding claims of professional legitimacy in broad societal norms, and second, by grounding claims of professional identity in localized but increasingly abstract expressions of professional expertise.","PeriodicalId":45650,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Professions and Organization","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2019-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/JPO/JOZ007","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44492114","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The sociology of professions has so far had limited connections to emergency services occupations. Research on emergency occupations tends to focus on workplace culture and identity, often emphasizing continuity rather than change. Police officers, firefighters, and paramedics have their historical roots in manual, technical, or ‘semi-professional’ occupations and their working lives still bear many of the hallmarks of blue-collar, uniformed ‘street-level’ work. But uniformed emergency services—like many other occupations—are increasingly undergoing processes of ‘professionalization’. The organizations in which they are employed and the fields in which they work have undergone significant change and disruption, calling into question the core features, cultures, and duties of these occupations. This article argues that sociology of work on emergency services could be helpfully brought into closer contact with the sociology of professions in order to better understand these changes. It suggests four broad empirical and conceptual domains where meaningful connections can be made between these literatures, namely, leadership and authority; organizational goals and objectives; professional identities; and ‘extreme’ work. Emergency services are evolving in complex directions while retaining certain long-standing and entrenched features. Studying emergency occupations as professions also sheds new light on the changing nature of ‘professionalism’ itself.
{"title":"Beyond ‘blue-collar professionalism’: Continuity and change in the professionalization of uniformed emergency services work","authors":"Leo McCann, Edward Granter","doi":"10.1093/JPO/JOZ006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/JPO/JOZ006","url":null,"abstract":"The sociology of professions has so far had limited connections to emergency services occupations. Research on emergency occupations tends to focus on workplace culture and identity, often emphasizing continuity rather than change. Police officers, firefighters, and paramedics have their historical roots in manual, technical, or ‘semi-professional’ occupations and their working lives still bear many of the hallmarks of blue-collar, uniformed ‘street-level’ work. But uniformed emergency services—like many other occupations—are increasingly undergoing processes of ‘professionalization’. The organizations in which they are employed and the fields in which they work have undergone significant change and disruption, calling into question the core features, cultures, and duties of these occupations. This article argues that sociology of work on emergency services could be helpfully brought into closer contact with the sociology of professions in order to better understand these changes. It suggests four broad empirical and conceptual domains where meaningful connections can be made between these literatures, namely, leadership and authority; organizational goals and objectives; professional identities; and ‘extreme’ work. Emergency services are evolving in complex directions while retaining certain long-standing and entrenched features. Studying emergency occupations as professions also sheds new light on the changing nature of ‘professionalism’ itself.","PeriodicalId":45650,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Professions and Organization","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2019-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/JPO/JOZ006","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48136726","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
F. Rojas, Clayton D. Thomas, S. Mukherjee, E. Meanwell, Lauren Apgar
Social scientists and management scholars have tended to see workplace interaction through the lens of hierarchy. However, modern workplaces include many people who do not fit neatly into such hierarchies because their work is designed to assess, support, sanction, or monitor other workers who already have well-established positions. Motivated by this observation, we conducted interviews with 193 infection preventionists—healthcare workers whose job it is to work with higher status physicians to monitor and suppress healthcare-acquired infections—to assess how workers outside of existing hierarchies can integrate their work. Inductive analyses of these interviews suggest three strategies: deference; relying on bureaucracy’s routines and practices; and recruiting higher status confederates, which we call side-channeling. From these analyses, we introduce the concept of complementary work to describe labor that seeks to supplement existing workplace hierarchies.
{"title":"Complementary work in the hospital: How infection preventionists perceive opportunities for cooperation with higher status physicians","authors":"F. Rojas, Clayton D. Thomas, S. Mukherjee, E. Meanwell, Lauren Apgar","doi":"10.1093/JPO/JOZ002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/JPO/JOZ002","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Social scientists and management scholars have tended to see workplace interaction through the lens of hierarchy. However, modern workplaces include many people who do not fit neatly into such hierarchies because their work is designed to assess, support, sanction, or monitor other workers who already have well-established positions. Motivated by this observation, we conducted interviews with 193 infection preventionists—healthcare workers whose job it is to work with higher status physicians to monitor and suppress healthcare-acquired infections—to assess how workers outside of existing hierarchies can integrate their work. Inductive analyses of these interviews suggest three strategies: deference; relying on bureaucracy’s routines and practices; and recruiting higher status confederates, which we call side-channeling. From these analyses, we introduce the concept of complementary work to describe labor that seeks to supplement existing workplace hierarchies.","PeriodicalId":45650,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Professions and Organization","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2019-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/JPO/JOZ002","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45999676","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}