Professions And Professionalism

The Routledge Companion to the Professions and Professionalism is a state-of-the-art reference work which maps out the current developments and debates around the sociology of the professions, and how they relate to management and organizations. Supported by an international contributor team specializing in the disciplines of organizational studies and sociology, the collection provides extensive coverage of this field of research. It brings together the core concepts and issues, and has chapters on all the key aspects of professions in both the public and private sectors, including issues of governance and regulation. The volume closes with a set of international case studies which provide valuable practical insights into the subject. This Companion will be an indispensable reference source for students, scholars and educators within the social sciences, especially within management, organizational studies and sociology. It will also be highly relevant for those working and studying in the area of professional education.

In The System of Professions Andrew Abbott explores central questions about the role of professions in modern life: Why should there be occupational groups controlling expert knowledge? Where and why did groups such as law and medicine achieve their power? Will professionalism spread throughout the occupational world? While most inquiries in this field study one profession at a time, Abbott here considers the system of professions as a whole. Through comparative and historical study of the professions in nineteenth- and twentieth-century England, France, and America, Abbott builds a general theory of how and why professionals evolve.

Professions are increasingly linked with enterprise at a number of interrelated levels. By considering the relationship of professions to the enterprise contexts in which they work, this book reveals the dilemmas posed to professional groups, and the opportunities and constraints that can arise in their organisational frameworks. Addressing both private and public sectors, this collection explores questions including: what are the implications for the culture, practices and identities of professions of working in enterprise contexts, including with increased globalisation? Are professions becoming more entrepreneurial in a knowledge economy? What are the tensions between professionalism and enterprise and how are these resolved? These are themes that are extremely important to professionals and their managers, especially with the rise of large-scale professional service firms serving corporate clients with truly global reach. This cutting-edge collection will be of interest to researchers, educators and advanced students studying professional behaviour in fields such as business studies, management, organisational analysis, public administration, political science, social policy and sociology, as well as students on focused programmes of professional study in fields such as health, law and social care.

Self-regulation has long been at the core of sociological understandings of what it means to be a "profession." However, the historical processes resulting in the formation of self-regulating professions have not been well understood. In Regulating Professions, Tracey L. Adams explores the emergence of self-regulating professions in British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, and Nova Scotia from Confederation to 1940. Adams’s in-depth research reveals the backstory of those occupations deemed worthy to regulate, such as medicine, law, dentistry, and land surveying, and how they were regulated. Adams evaluates sociological explanations for professionalization and its regulation by analysing their applicability to the Canadian experience and especially the role played by the state. By considering the role of all those involved in creating the professional landscape in Canada, Adams provides a clear picture of the process and illuminates how important this has been in building Canadian institutions and society.

The Routledge Companion to the Professions and Professionalism is a state-of-the-art reference work which maps out the current developments and debates around the sociology of the professions, and how they relate to management and organizations. Supported by an international contributor team specializing in the disciplines of organizational studies and sociology, the collection provides extensive coverage of this field of research. It brings together the core concepts and issues, and has chapters on all the key aspects of professions in both the public and private sectors, including issues of governance and regulation. The volume closes with a set of international case studies which provide valuable practical insights into the subject. This Companion will be an indispensable reference source for students, scholars and educators within the social sciences, especially within management, organizational studies and sociology. It will also be highly relevant for those working and studying in the area of professional education.

Professionalism is arguably more important in some occupations than in others. It is vital in some because of the life and death decisions that must be made, for example in medicine. In others the rapidly changing nature of the occupation makes efficient regulation difficult and so the professional behaviour of the practitioners is central to the good functioning of that occupation. The core idea behind this book is that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is changing so quickly that professional behaviour of its practitioners is vital because regulation will always lag behind.

Responsibility and professionalism are increasingly issues of concern for professional associations, employers and educators alike. When bad things happen, professionals are often held personally accountable for complex situations. Professional Responsibility and Professionalism advances our approaches to professional responsibility from individual-centred, virtue-based prescriptions towards understanding and responding effectively to the multifaceted challenges encountered today by professionals working in dynamic complexity. The author applies a sociomaterial examination to specific examples drawn from different professional contexts of practice. She examines important implications for what professional responsibility and accountability might mean individually and collectively, and what it might be becoming when demands increasingly conflict, and when we accept that capacities for action are performed into existence in emergent and precarious webs of both human and non-human forces. The chapters explore some of the most prominent questions in professional responsibility, including: What does professional responsibility, and accountability, mean in the escalating complexities and conflicts confronting today’s professionals? How does professional responsibility become developed and enacted, and through what social and material entanglements? How should responsibility be determined in multi-agency and interprofessional practice? What happens when professional decisions are delegated to software algorithms and diagnostic instruments? How are new governing regimes of professional work, such as innovation imperatives, excessive audit and logics of blame and scapegoating, reconfiguring responsibility? How can professionals respond simultaneously to individuals in need, the obligations of their profession, the demands of their employer and an anxious society? A major concern addressed by each chapter, and the book as a whole, is educating professionals in and for responsibility. Specific dilemmas and strategies are offered for educators in universities, workplaces and professional development contexts who seek new approaches to helping professionals learn to critically understand and practise responsibility today. This book will appeal to a wide audience of education researchers and post-graduate students studying professional practice, professionalism and education across a wide range of disciplines. Health professionals, professionals working in private practices, such as law, architecture and engineering, newer professions such as social work and policing, and educational professionals at all levels will find stories and strategies reflecting key issues of their practice in this detailed exploration of professional responsibility and accountability.

With a new preface outlining the most recent critical developments, this updated edtion of The Future of the Professions predicts how technology will transform the work of doctors, teachers, architects, lawyers, and many others in the 21st century, and introduces the people and systems that may replace them.