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The purpose of this paper is to establish a typology of a profession and to then assess the circumstances under which management could be classified as a profession against such a typology.

The current paper is conceptual. The research approach consists of formulating a typology of a profession based on the literature research methodology. The resulting typology is applied to assess management as a profession.

Although there have been efforts in recent literature and media commentary to position management as a profession, no thorough conceptually based analysis to rigorously analyze nor test this claim against the dominant arguments in the literature has been undertaken. The typology presents comprehensive research and analysis across disciplines to identify the circumstances under which management could be considered a profession.

The paper offers a complete typology upon which to classify a profession. It provides highly supported arguments to discern elements of a profession. The key limitation lies in capturing and organizing extensive concepts and views across diverse literature disciplines to refine a holistic perspective (i.e. accountancy, business management, ethics, psychology and sociology).

This conceptual typology enables the design of a highly operable assessment system. It considers requisite standards for professions. It also informs potential professional bodies of the obligations to which they and their members must adhere to achieve and retain the status of a profession.

A comprehensive typology indicating the interdependent requirements and obligations required by a profession has not been espoused in either popular business journals or academic journals across the discipline areas now covered by this research investigation. The contribution provides a comprehensive academic argument to answer the question: can management be considered a profession?

The purpose of this paper is to outline the reflections of a person with lived experience of a severe mental illness (SMI) and former peer support worker in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, who has also worked for seven years in mental health research. It describes a tendency of resources and services to create ghettos of people with SMIs by failing to support the integration of people with SMIs into the community at large or in exploring options for meaningful, fulfilling occupation, reinforcing social exclusion and ghettoization.

This paper shows a reflective and narrative account of personal experiences and observations of the ghettoizing tendency in mental health services.

Mental healthcare professionals tend to support people with SMIs in engaging activities within resources for the mentally ill, and not in carrying out activities in the community at large. The range of activities offered is limited, an obstacle to finding meaningful, fulfilling occupation. Harmful psychological effects include self-stigma, low self-esteem and a sense of marginalization, generating a ghettoized mentality. The difficulties encountered in an effort to leave the mental health ghetto are touched on with examples of how to overcome them.

The need for professional support for social integration of people with SMIs is identified, which could ultimately favor social inclusion of people with SMIs.

It is written from the perspective of a user and provider of mental health services, who also has seven years’ experience in mental health research.

This paper discusses the well-publicized labor shortages in the building trades, reviews the causes for the deficiencies, and presents prescriptions for how career counselors and schools can play a critical role in encouraging young adults to consider construction occupations.

Using data from government agencies, trade organizations, and scholarly publications, this paper describes the categories of the building trades as well as their employment trends and compensation prospects. It also reviews the personal and environmental factors that could lead to the “construction of a construction career.”

This article documents the reasons for the labor shortages in the construction industry and then offers recommendation on how younger adults could be encouraged to consider the building trades as viable career alternatives.

Labor shortages in the construction industry have a direct and indirect deleterious effect on the economic well-being of every country. This article provides suggestions on how to inspire young adults to consider the building trades as worthwhile career pursuits.

There is a limited amount of scholarly attention given to career decision making related to occupations that do not require a college degree, including the building trades. This paper attempts to fill this gap in the literature by focusing on the individual characteristics and environmental factors that might prompt consideration of a career in the building trades. It also describes the educational, governmental, and corporate initiatives that work to encourage individuals, working in conjunction with their career counselors, to consider careers in the construction industry.

This article provides a critical review of four constructs-organizational identification, organizational commitment, occupational identification, and occupational commitment-to advance our understanding about how public sector employees from different occupations may become psychologically attached to their organizations. This review is intended to clarify previous inconsistencies as well as spark new interest among public administration researchers to examine sources and consequences of public employees’ organizational identification and commitment. This article also elucidates about how public sector employees’ attachment to their occupations may influence their attachment to their organizations. In that effort, this article reviews interrelationships among the four constructs. Finally, based on the patterns of connections observed, a future research program including seven testable research propositions is proposed.

Social structural and cultural theories suggest that social stress induced from socio‐cultural status patterns varies across the world's cultures. The purpose of the study is to compare subjective social stress in connection with objective socio‐cultural status patterns among Muslim, Hindu, Santal and Oraon communities in Rasulpur of Bangladesh.

This study was conducted in Rasulpur, Bangladesh. Preliminarily, 760 male arrack drinkers who were stressful in their socio‐cultural status patterns were selected by snowball process from the study area. Of the respondents, 391 arrack drinkers (109 Muslim, 103 Hindu, 89 Santal and 90 Oraon) were intensively interviewed by semi‐structural questionnaire to examine and compare the research purpose.

The results of Pearson's χ² test suggested that there were significant differences (p<0.01) in subjective social stress in connection with socio‐cultural status patterns, except income among the communities, among the ethnic communities. The results of Spearman bivariate correlation coefficients revealed that there were significant relationships (p<0.01 and p<0.05) between socio‐cultural status patterns and its social stress, except occupation and income among the communities studied.

Although the findings of the study have been successful in understanding differences in social stress in the context of socio‐cultural status patterns among the Muslim, Hindu, Santal and Oraon communities in Rasulpur, Bangladesh, further empirical research is needed on how personality factor, familial and community coping and social support from social service system influence the differences in subjective social stress associated with socio‐cultural status patterns among the communities. In spite of the limitations, the findings may provide valuable information for cross‐cultural social health policy and programs to manage the problem.

This paper is original in linking its theory, policy and practice to reduce subjective social stress in the context of socio‐cultural variations among the Muslim, Hindu, Santal and Oraon communities in Bangladesh.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between congruence between employee and employer psychological contract fulfillment and commitment. The authors further studied how the relationship is moderated by distributive justice.

The authors conducted polynomial regression analyses with response surface methodology on two Korean samples.

Congruence between employee and employer psychological contract fulfillment was positively related to affective commitment and occupational commitment. Distributive justice moderated these relationships.

The main limitation was common method bias as a result of the cross-sectional nature of the study designs.

Employers must be vigilant not only with regard to fulfilling employees’ psychological contracts but also to doing this fairly.

The authors studied the interaction effect of distributive justice on the relationship between psychological contract congruence and commitment in Korea.

The purpose of this article is to examine matching in the graduate labour market (GLM) in order to understand how expansion of higher education is perceived and translated in practice.

The article uses meritocracy and credentialism as frames of reference to explain the role of educational certification in systems of social structuring. Correspondingly, qualifications may function as signals, screens or proxies. Qualitative evidence, drawing on 40 interviews with graduates, employers and educators gives insights on access requirements, recruitment and selection and transfer of knowledge and skills, in three graduate occupations: chartered accountants; active schools co‐ordinators; and risk managers.

Findings suggest that expanding graduate numbers has produced altered patterns of closure. Employers use the availability of relevant degrees to limit applications, define jurisdictional boundaries and exclude the less, or inappropriately qualified. Yet correspondence between degree and occupation cannot necessarily be read off by a connected degree.

Closer connections between degree and occupation imply labour market segmentation although this requires further evidence in other occupations.

Supply‐side policy interventions are countered by strategic use of graduates. The paper explores issues of relevance to policymakers, employers, educators and graduates and will be of interest to those in the field.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a straightforward, practical model of employability that will allow the concept to be explained easily and that can be used as a framework for working with students to develop their employability.

The model was developed from existing research into employability issues and the experience of the authors. The various elements of employability included in the model are discussed and their inclusion justified on the basis of existing research.

The model sets out exactly what is meant by employability, in clear and simple terms, and the model suggests directions for interaction between the various elements.

The relationships between and the interaction of the elements within the model remain theoretical. Further research to test the model is planned and will be reported on at a later date.

The model can be used to explain the concept of employability to those new to the subject, and particularly to students and their parents. It will be a useful tool for lecturers, personal tutors, careers advisors and any other practitioners involved in employability activities. It will also be used to develop a measurement tool for employability.

This paper seeks to fill the gap between in‐depth, scholarly and complex articles or books about employability and very simple descriptive articles. It will be of value to anybody with an interest in employability issues.

The purpose of this paper is to problematise the dominant conceptualisation of entrepreneurship by recognising the everyday resistance inherent in mundane entrepreneurial practices. Its principle purpose is to show how entrepreneurial activities enacted by ordinary individuals in a marginalised and oppressed context can be an important means of resisting economic adversity, social marginalisation and political (colonial) domination.

Framed within de Certeau’s conceptualisation of the practices of everyday life, this study utilises a “focussed ethnography”, relying on “participant observation” and “informal interviews”, to explore the perceptions and experiences of Palestinian women street vendors, and how they use everyday entrepreneurial practices in the open-air market of the Old City of Jerusalem to become socially and politically empowered.

The arguments in this paper demonstrate how marginalised Palestinian women, who are equipped with a genuine critical vision of their reality and a biophiliac attitude, use entrepreneuring to enact new possibilities for themselves and for their families. Through their entrepreneurial act of street vending, these women exemplify a struggle against economic and socio-political constraints, transforming the act of entrepreneuring from a mere economic practice to an all-encompassing human project, one with a more human face.

This paper extends the argument for the complex and dynamic nature of the phenomenon and exposes its political nature, hitherto inadequately addressed in existing literature, as well as uncovers the potential of entrepreneurialism to enhance individual empowerment and contribute to meaningful social change. In addition, it addresses the need for scholarly work that focuses on the everyday entrepreneurial activities carried out by ordinary individuals experiencing various forms of oppression in new and challenging spaces, which are seldom acknowledged within the dominant theoretical and research frameworks.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and construct a model for the mechanisms for authorization of actors in contemporary society performing in the role of the expert.

The study used qualitative analyses of about 70 interviews with management consultants in small/middle‐sized nationally based (in Sweden) consultancies, and with buyers in public organizations of their services. The data are, however, expected to represent more general tendencies of the mechanisms for authorization of experts such as management consultants. The interviews were seen as narratives from the field and interpreted qualitatively in order to search for patterns and categories.

Systems for professionalism in practice among experts such as management consultants do not follow the routes suggested by traditional theories of professions. It is another system for professionalism where success in commercialisation means authorization in the role of the expert on the market. The mechanism for authorization is trust and the way to construct this is that the single expert and the organizations he or she represents emphasize versatility, availability, relevance and differentiation in their practice as experts.

There is a growth in numbers, competence areas and importance of these forms of expert work in contemporary society. Understanding this is necessary and this study offers a model that explains this.

Markets for vague forms of experts, such as management consultants, are emerging. These are challenges faced by many individuals and organizations today.

More individuals work under consulting conditions, more organizations tend to hire more external experts of various kinds on temporary bases instead of employing them, and the number of expert organizations is emerging and their size is increasing.

Little attention has been devoted to explanations of how authorization in practice is constructed and achieved among the new experts. This study offers a model for how this can be understood.