Search results

1 – 10 of over 181000
Book part
Publication date: 15 October 2020

Jane S. VanHeuvelen

Autonomy has long been established as a critical component of professional work. Traditionally, autonomy has been examined as the extent to which an individual or a professional

Abstract

Autonomy has long been established as a critical component of professional work. Traditionally, autonomy has been examined as the extent to which an individual or a professional group controls the decisions and knowledge used in their work. Yet, this framework does not capture the additional work activities that professionals are increasingly expected to perform. Therefore, this chapter argues for theoretically expanding our understanding of professional autonomy by bringing in the concept of articulation work. Using the case of healthcare organisational change, this study assesses how shifts in work practices impact autonomy. Data come from longitudinal ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews conducted at a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit as it underwent significant structural changes. Findings show that professionals were forced to change articulation work strategies in response to new organisational structures. This included changes in the way professionals monitored, assessed, coordinated and collaborated around patient care. Furthermore, these shifts in articulation work held important implications for both workplace and professional autonomy, as professionals responded to changes in their work conditions.

Details

Professional Work: Knowledge, Power and Social Inequalities
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80043-210-9

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 23 September 2022

Georg Loscher and Verena Bader

In this paper, we explore the effects of emerging digital technologies on professionalization within organizations. Specifically, we examine how the emergence of data analytics as…

Abstract

In this paper, we explore the effects of emerging digital technologies on professionalization within organizations. Specifically, we examine how the emergence of data analytics as a new cross-functional profession rooted in new digital technologies is challenging human resources (HR) as an established organizational profession. Our qualitative study reveals how rhetorical work and material work have established a symbiosis between data science and HR. Rather than leading to de-professionalization, new technologies are enabling HR practices to be augmented and new actors to be integrated into the professionalization project, thereby elevating the status of HR. These findings contribute to the literature on the role of technology in institutional theory and its influences on the professionalization.

Details

Digital Transformation and Institutional Theory
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80262-222-5

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 8 July 2015

Heidi K. Gardner and Melissa Valentine

This chapter examines collaboration among highly autonomous, powerful, professional peers to explain why the benefits of teamwork that scholars typically find in traditional teams…

Abstract

Purpose

This chapter examines collaboration among highly autonomous, powerful, professional peers to explain why the benefits of teamwork that scholars typically find in traditional teams may not apply. The chapter analyzes the perspectives of individual professionals to show that, in this setting, collaboration is often seen as more costly than rewarding for the individuals involved. It presents a conceptual framework exploring this paradox and suggests directions for future research to elaborate an underlying theory.

Methodology/approach

The chapter draws on extensive qualitative data from surveys and interviews in three professional service firms, including a top 100 global law firm, a boutique executive search firm, and a large, US-based commercial advisory firm. Findings are married integrated with organizational theory to develop testable propositions for future research.

Findings

Because senior professionals collaborate with peers who have the autonomy to choose to work collectively or independently, power and authority are not means to create a team or make it effective. Findings show how professionals interpret the relative costs and benefits of collaboration, and suggest that in most cases, senior professionals will not attempt it or give it up before collaborations can reap important benefits. Thus, short-term costs prevent opportunities to experience longer term benefits for many professionals. Yet, some professionals have figured out how to use “instrumental collaboration” to shift the balance in their favor. The chapter’s conceptual framework uses a longitudinal perspective to resolve this seeming paradox.

Research implications

The chapter presents a nascent theory of instrumental collaboration, including five testable hypotheses, an emergent conceptual framework, and suggestions for specific future research directions.

Book part
Publication date: 3 June 2008

Belinda Boon

In 2005, a qualitative study was undertaken to explore the educational events, personal experiences, and job circumstances that a selected group of non-MLS library directors…

Abstract

In 2005, a qualitative study was undertaken to explore the educational events, personal experiences, and job circumstances that a selected group of non-MLS library directors working in small Texas communities believed were significant in contributing to their professional development. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 17 female library directors working in Texas communities with populations of 25,000 or less using open-ended questions, and interviews were recorded and transcribed for later analysis. Four major topic areas relating to the professionalization of non-MLS library directors were identified from the data: (1) job satisfaction, including library work as spiritual salvation, librarianship and the ethic of caring, making a difference in the community, and pride in professional identity; (2) professional development, including hiring narratives, continuing education and lifelong learning, mentoring and professional development, and the importance of the MLS degree; (3) challenges facing small community library directors, including gender-based discrimination, resistance from local governing officials, and geographic isolation; and (4) guidelines for success, including understanding the community, becoming part of the community, making the library the heart of the community, business and managerial skills, and people and customer service skills.

Details

Advances in Library Administration and Organization
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-7623-1488-1

Book part
Publication date: 15 August 2004

Janet Carson

This study takes the position that the vitality of academic libraries is grounded in the working experiences of its librarians. It suggests that a full understanding of problems…

Abstract

This study takes the position that the vitality of academic libraries is grounded in the working experiences of its librarians. It suggests that a full understanding of problems facing contemporary information professionals in the post-industrial workplace requires an analysis of the labouring aspects as well as the professional nature of their work. The study of changes in the academic library work experience thus depicts the state of the library, and has implications for other intellectual workers in a social environment characterized by expanding information technologies, constricted economic resources, and the globalization of information production. Academic librarians have long recognized that their vocation lies not only in the classical role in information collection, organization, and dissemination, but also in collaboration with faculty in the teaching and research process, and in the contribution to university governance. They are becoming increasingly active in the protection of information access and assurance of information quality in view of information degradation on the Internet and various compromises necessitated by interaction with third party commercial information producers.

Details

Advances in Library Administration and Organization
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84950-284-9

Book part
Publication date: 15 October 2020

Sida Liu

Professionals often dislike dirty work, yet they accommodate or even embrace it in everyday practice. This chapter problematizes Andrew Abbott’s professional purity thesis by…

Abstract

Professionals often dislike dirty work, yet they accommodate or even embrace it in everyday practice. This chapter problematizes Andrew Abbott’s professional purity thesis by examining five major forms of impurities in professional work, namely impurity in expertise, impurity in jurisdictions, impurity in clients, impurity in organizations, and impurity in politics. These impurities complicate the relationship between purity and status as some impurities may enhance professional status while others may jeopardize it, especially when the social origins of professionals are rapidly diversifying and professional work is increasingly intertwined with the logics of market and bureaucracy. Taking impurities seriously can help the sociology of professions move beyond the idealistic image of an independent, disinterested professional detached from human emotions, turf battles, client influence, and organizational or political forces and towards a more pragmatic understanding of professional work, expertise, ethics and the nature of professionalism.

Details

Professional Work: Knowledge, Power and Social Inequalities
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80043-210-9

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 June 1987

David Baker

Library assistants were originally considered to be professional librarians in the making, and were trained accordingly. With the expansion of libraries and librarianship…

Abstract

Library assistants were originally considered to be professional librarians in the making, and were trained accordingly. With the expansion of libraries and librarianship, Britain's “apprenticeship” system of qualification gave way to formal library school education, and a new category of “non‐professional staff” was created, of people who were unwilling or unable to proceed to graduate‐level qualification. The development of non‐professional certificates of competence in the UK is described against parallel developments in the US, Canada and Australia; the COMLA training modules are also examined. The theoretical and practical issues surrounding training are discussed, training schemes and qualifications in the four countries analysed, and the relative merits of in‐house training and external certificate programmes argued.

Details

Library Management, vol. 8 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0143-5124

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 11 May 2020

Sally Smith, Thomas N. Garavan, Anne Munro, Elaine Ramsey, Colin F. Smith and Alison Varey

The purpose of this study is to explore the role of professional and leader identity and the maintenance of identity, through identity work as IT professionals transitioned to a…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to explore the role of professional and leader identity and the maintenance of identity, through identity work as IT professionals transitioned to a permanent hybrid role. This study therefore contributes to the under-researched area of permanent transition to a hybrid role in the context of IT, where there is a requirement to enact both the professional and leader roles together.

Design/methodology/approach

The study utilised a longitudinal design and two qualitative methods (interviews and reflective diaries) to gather data from 17 IT professionals transitioning to hybrid roles.

Findings

The study findings reveal that IT professionals engage in an ongoing process of reconciliation of professional and leader identity as they transition to a permanent hybrid role, and they construct hybrid professional–leader identities while continuing to value their professional identity. They experience professional–leader identity conflict resulting from reluctance to reconcile both professional and leader identities. They used both integration and differentiation identity work tactics to ameliorate these tensions.

Originality/value

The longitudinal study design, the qualitative approaches used and the unique context of the participants provide a dynamic and deep understanding of the challenges involved in performing hybrid roles in the context of IT.

Details

Information Technology & People, vol. 34 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-3845

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 26 September 2019

Helen Thacker, Ann Anka and Bridget Penhale

The purpose of this paper is to consider the importance of professional curiosity and partnership work in safeguarding adults from serious harm, abuse and neglect.

4724

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to consider the importance of professional curiosity and partnership work in safeguarding adults from serious harm, abuse and neglect.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper draws on a range of materials including: review of published materials in relation to professional curiosity, reports from adult serious case reviews (SCRs) and safeguarding adult reviews (SARs); relevant materials drawn from the SAR Library, thematic reviews of SARs and Google searches; observations from practice and experience. It also refers to the relevant academic literature.

Findings

Lessons from SCRs and SARs show that a lack of professional curiosity and poor coordination of support can lead to poor assessments and intervention measures that can fail to support those at risk of harm and abuse. There are a number of barriers to professionals practicing with curiosity. Working in partnership enhances the likelihood that professional curiosity will flourish.

Practical implications

There are clear implications for improving practice by increasing professional curiosity amongst professionals. The authors argue that there is a scope to improve professional curiosity by utilising and developing existing partnerships, and ultimately to help reduce the number of deaths and incidents of serious harm.

Originality/value

The paper considers the importance of employing professional curiosity and partnership work in safeguarding adults’ practice, so enabling practitioners to better safeguard adults at risk of abuse and neglect.

Details

The Journal of Adult Protection, vol. 21 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1466-8203

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 14 July 2017

Johan Alvehus

By drawing on a detailed case study of the work of tax consultants, the purpose of this paper is to develop a more detailed understanding of the role of ambiguity in professional

Abstract

Purpose

By drawing on a detailed case study of the work of tax consultants, the purpose of this paper is to develop a more detailed understanding of the role of ambiguity in professional work, and its relationship to the division of labour in professional service firms (PSFs).

Design/methodology/approach

The paper is based on a three-year, longitudinal interpretive case study comprising 42 interviews, supplemented by observations and document data.

Findings

The research determines that processes of “obfuscation” and “privatisation” separate client work from case work. This maintains a division of labour between junior and senior professionals, which in turn facilitates financial leverage. The findings indicate that a more nuanced view on the role and origins of ambiguity is needed; particularly the role ambiguity plays in the division of labour. While inherent in professional work, ambiguity is also an effect of the way work processes are organised in order to obtain leverage.

Research limitations/implications

The research is based on a case study. Therefore, the paper explores its topic in empirical detail, but at the same time calls for exploring the topic in different contexts. The paper encourages further research on the role ambiguity plays being constituted by structural arrangements, and on the way the core of professionalism is inverted by the division of labour. The paper highlights the value of detailed empirical approaches for understanding professional work.

Practical implications

The paper draws attention to the way ambiguity becomes a part in sustaining a division of labour among professional workers, and to the importance of this in maintaining financial leverage as well as in creating a precarious work situation for junior professionals.

Social implications

The paper raises concerns about the way professional work is legitimated in society as opposed to how it is constructed in PSFs.

Originality/value

The paper challenges prevalent notions of professional work as ambiguous, offering instead a way of engaging with professional work processes in detail, theoretically and methodologically. Traditional assumptions about the division of labour and the “core” of professional work are problematized, and traditional assumptions about ambiguity as a cause of specific structural arrangements are questioned.

Details

Baltic Journal of Management, vol. 12 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5265

Keywords

1 – 10 of over 181000