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Article
Publication date: 1 September 2022

Karl Löfgren, Ben Darrah-Morgan and Patrik Hall

The purpose of this article is to ascertain empirically to what extent we can quantify an occupational shift, where a new type of bureaucracy of organisational professionals is on…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to ascertain empirically to what extent we can quantify an occupational shift, where a new type of bureaucracy of organisational professionals is on the rise in tertiary educational institutions in New Zealand. Furthermore, the objective is also to present accountability as the prime factor behind the changes.

Design/methodology/approach

The analytical strategy of the study takes a point of departure in the distinction between occupational and organisational professionals in the public sector in general, and more specifically in tertiary education (TE). Based on these new categorisations, the authors have used various descriptive historical statistics (both national and institutional) to estimate changes over time.

Findings

The article finds, in line with some international research, that there has been a comparatively higher growth of organisational professionals in TE in New Zealand, and a significantly higher growth than in the private sector and in the overall public services. The authors hypothesise that this growth can be associated with accountability (both vertical and horizontal) as the dominant notion in TE.

Originality/value

This article takes a different approach than the existing literature on administrative intensity in TE by looking at occupational changes rather than changes in institutions budgets. This article also confirms some of the findings in the growing international literature on changes in professional roles.

Details

International Journal of Public Sector Management, vol. 35 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3558

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 December 2001

John O. Ogbor

Based on critical theory and dialectical thought, discusses and outlines a framework for understanding corporate culture as corporate hegemony. First, offers the relevance of

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Abstract

Based on critical theory and dialectical thought, discusses and outlines a framework for understanding corporate culture as corporate hegemony. First, offers the relevance of critical theory to the study of corporate culture as a managerial praxis and organizational discourse. Second, examines three aspects of the dialectics of corporate culture: the dialectical tensions between corporate and individual identity; the conflicting pressure for uniformity and diversity; and the dialectics of empowerment and disempowerment. Third, discusses the mechanisms for the hegemonic perpetuation of corporate culture by researchers and practitioners and for resisting a critical stance in the discourse of corporate culture. Fourth, and finally, the article examines possible ways for overcoming the problem of cultural hegemony in organization theory and praxis.

Details

Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol. 14 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0953-4814

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 16 August 2011

Maria Tsouroufli, Mustafa Özbilgin and Merryn Smith

Attempts to modernise the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK involve promoting flexible approaches to work and training, restructuring postgraduate training and increasing…

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Abstract

Purpose

Attempts to modernise the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK involve promoting flexible approaches to work and training, restructuring postgraduate training and increasing control and scrutiny of doctors' work. However, the medical community has responded with expressed anxiety about the implications of these changes for medical professionalism and the quality of patient care. This paper aims to address these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

Drawing on literature on nostalgia, gender, identity and organisations, the paper explores the narratives of 20 senior NHS hospital doctors to identify ways in which doctors use nostalgia to react to organisational and professional challenges and resist modernisation and feminisation of medicine.

Findings

This paper illustrates how senior hospital doctors' nostalgic discourses of temporal commitment may be used to constitute a highly esteemed professional identity, creating a sense of personal and occupational uniqueness for senior hospital doctors, intertwined with gendered forms of othering and exclusionary practices.

Practical implications

Nostalgia at first sight appears to be an innocuous social construct. However, this study illustrates the significance of nostalgia as a subversive practice of resistance with implications for women's career and identity experiences. Change initiatives that seek to tackle resistance need also to address discourses of nostalgia in the medical profession.

Originality/value

The main contribution of this study is that we illustrate how supposedly neutral discourses of nostalgia may sometimes be mobilised as devices of resistance. This study questions simplistic focus on numerical representation, such as feminisation, as indicative of modernisation and highlights the significance of exploring discourses and head counts for understanding resistance to modernisation.

Details

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, vol. 30 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2040-7149

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 25 March 2024

Sarah Williams

This chapter explores the extent to which female public relations (PR) practitioners perform professionalism in the workplace by interrogating and examining their professional…

Abstract

This chapter explores the extent to which female public relations (PR) practitioners perform professionalism in the workplace by interrogating and examining their professional behaviours. Using an ethnographic approach, where the researcher is immersed in the field, it uncovers the lived experiences and behavioural responses of women working in PR agency environments in the United Kingdom and enables a rich description of professional behaviours to emerge.

Fawkes argues that research into roles in PR ‘has tended to assess roles using management rather than sociological theory’ (2014, p. 2). That is not to say that all PR research adopts the same paradigmatic stance. Several scholars have encouraged the development of a research agenda rooted in social theory. Holtzhausen called for a move away from what she termed the ‘modernist approach to organizations’ (2002, p. 251), which focuses on management discourse, and encouraged instead a focus on the postmodern concept of discourse, where meaning is constructed and conveyed through social and institutional practices.

In seeking to discover the ‘lived experience’ of female practitioners, this chapter locates professionalism in the context of their behaviours and enables individuals to articulate their understandings of the relationship between performance and professionalism. Using Goffman's (1959) work on social encounters as performances in conjunction with Foucauldian discourse and Feminist theory, this chapter explores the three stages of performing professionalism – preparation, performance and reception – through the eyes of women working in PR agencies in the United Kingdom to explore their lived experience and determine how gender affects their performance of professional behaviour.

Details

Women’s Work in Public Relations
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80455-539-2

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Police Occupational Culture
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-85724-055-2

Article
Publication date: 21 February 2020

Toyin Ajibade Adisa, Emeka Smart Oruh and Babatunde Akanji

Despite the fundamental role of culture in an organisational setting, little is known of how organisational culture can be sometimes determined/influenced by professional culture…

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Abstract

Purpose

Despite the fundamental role of culture in an organisational setting, little is known of how organisational culture can be sometimes determined/influenced by professional culture, particularly in the global south. Using Nigeria as a research focus, this article uses critical discuss analysis to examine the link between professional and organisational culture.

Design/methodology/approach

This study uses qualitative research approach to establish the significance of professional culture as a determinant of organisational culture among healthcare organisations.

Findings

We found that the medical profession in Nigeria is replete with professional duties and responsibilities, such as professional values and beliefs, professional rules and regulations, professional ethics, eagerness to fulfil the Hippocratic Oath, professional language, professional symbols, medicine codes of practice and societal expectations, all of which conflate to form medical professionals' values, beliefs, assumptions and the shared perceptions and practices upon which the medical professional culture is strongly built. This makes the medical professional culture stronger and more dominant than the healthcare organisational culture.

Research limitations/implications

The extent to which the findings of this research can be generalised is constrained by the limited and selected sample of the research.

Practical implications

The primacy of professional culture over organisational culture may have dysfunctional consequences for human resource management (HRM), as medical practitioners are obliged to stick to medical professional culture over human resources practices. Hence, human resources departments may struggle to cope with the behavioural issues that arise due to the dominant position taken by the medical practitioners. This is because the cultural system (professional culture), which is the configuration of beliefs, perceived values, code of ethics, practices and so forth. shared by medical doctors, subverts the operating system. Therefore, in the case of healthcare organisations, HRM should support and enhance the cultural system (the medical professional culture) by offering compatible operating strategies and practices.

Originality/value

This article provides valuable insights into the link between professional culture and organisational culture. It also enriches debates on organisational culture and professional culture. We, therefore, contend that a strong professional culture can overwhelm and eventually become an organisational culture.

Details

Employee Relations: The International Journal, vol. 42 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0142-5455

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 June 2003

Jeremy M. Wilson

Aside from a few groundbreaking studies, there has been little empirical exploration into the structure of American police organizations. Traditional organizational inquiries have…

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Abstract

Aside from a few groundbreaking studies, there has been little empirical exploration into the structure of American police organizations. Traditional organizational inquiries have suggested that structural characteristics can be differentiated between those that represent complexity or differentiation within the organization and those that represent control mechanisms to coordinate and manage the complexity. This research investigates whether these various structural elements are indicative of two latent constructs by developing and testing measurement models representing structural complexity and control. Organizational scholars have also argued that structural complexity increases the demand for structural control. Maguire investigated this issue in the context of police organizations and found little support for the hypothesis. The paper reexamines this relationship by extending and replicating Maguire’s analysis to ascertain if a different specification and sample sustain his conclusion. Utilizing data from the 1997 Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics survey and a survey conducted by Edward Maguire, the paper explores these issues using a sample of 401 large, municipal police organizations in the USA. The results indicate that structural control is unidimensional, while structural complexity is not. This study also provides modest evidence supporting an association between structural complexity and control.

Details

Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, vol. 26 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1363-951X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 16 May 2016

Mia von Knorring, Kristina Alexanderson and Miriam A Eliasson

– The purpose of this paper is to explore how healthcare managers construct the manager role in relation to the medical profession in their organisations.

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore how healthcare managers construct the manager role in relation to the medical profession in their organisations.

Design/methodology/approach

In total, 18 of Sweden’s 20 healthcare chief executive officers (CEOs) and 20 clinical department managers (CDMs) were interviewed about their views on management of physicians. Interviews were performed in the context of one aspect of healthcare management; i.e., management of physicians’ sickness certification practice. A discourse analysis approach was used for data analysis.

Findings

Few managers used a management-based discourse to construct the manager role. Instead, a profession-based discourse dominated and managers frequently used the attributes “physician” or “non-physician” to categorise themselves or other managers in their managerial roles. Some managers, both CEOs and CDMs, shifted between the management- and profession-based discourses, resulting in a kind of “yes, but […]” approach to management in the organisations. The dominating profession-based discourse served to reproduce the power and status of physicians within the organisation, thereby rendering the manager role weaker than the medical profession for both physician and non-physician managers.

Research limitations/implications

Further studies are needed to explore the impact of gender, managerial level, and basic profession on how managers construct the manager role in relation to physicians.

Practical implications

The results suggest that there is a need to address the organisational conditions for managers’ role taking in healthcare organisations.

Originality/value

Despite the general strengthening of the manager position in healthcare through political reforms during the last decades, this study shows that a profession-based discourse clearly dominated in how the managers constructed the manager role in relation to the medical profession on the workplace level in their organisations.

Details

Journal of Health Organization and Management, vol. 30 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1477-7266

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 August 2002

Pawan Budhwar, Andy Crane, Annette Davies, Rick Delbridge, Tim Edwards, Mahmoud Ezzamel, Lloyd Harris, Emmanuel Ogbonna and Robyn Thomas

Wonders whether companies actually have employees best interests at heart across physical, mental and spiritual spheres. Posits that most organizations ignore their workforce …

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Abstract

Wonders whether companies actually have employees best interests at heart across physical, mental and spiritual spheres. Posits that most organizations ignore their workforce – not even, in many cases, describing workers as assets! Describes many studies to back up this claim in theis work based on the 2002 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference, in Cardiff, Wales.

Details

Management Research News, vol. 25 no. 8/9/10
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0140-9174

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 17 June 2019

Tuba I. Agartan

The purpose of this paper is to investigate physicians’ response to reforms in Turkey on the basis of their experience of the changes in the daily work environment. It aims to…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate physicians’ response to reforms in Turkey on the basis of their experience of the changes in the daily work environment. It aims to bridge the gap between health policy and sociology of professions literatures to explain why some public-sector physicians have opposed the recent reforms.

Design/methodology/approach

The research adopts a qualitative methodology including semi-structured interviews and content analysis. The fieldwork involves collecting information through written documents and interviews with 23 physicians working in public tertiary hospitals in one large city.

Findings

Physicians’ response combines a concern with material interests, previously conceptualized in terms of erosion of autonomy, with anxiety over damage to their professional image and social status. The particular reform discourse adopted by policymakers disrupts the existing constructions of harmony in the professional discourse between the public and professional interests, and between social value and material interests.

Research limitations/implications

One major limitation of this paper is its exploratory nature and analysis based on one case study. Future studies that adopt a cross-country comparative approach could help addressing concerns of limited generalizability.

Originality/value

Earlier social science literature on health reforms has explained physicians’ opposition in terms of protecting their professional self-interest and fighting against any regulation that could limit their income or autonomy. The paper adopts a broader definition of interests that goes beyond this materialist conception and includes subjective ideas about interests such as values and beliefs about how they serve the public interest. This definition allows us to unpack the relationship between interest and autonomy.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 39 no. 7/8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

11 – 20 of 798