Abstract
For a long time, the sociological analysis of professional work has differentiated professionalism as a special means of organizing work and controlling workers and in contrast to the hierarchical, bureaucratic and managerial controls of industrial and commercial organizations. But professional work is changing and being changed as increasingly professionals (such as doctors, nurses, teachers, social workers) now work in employing organizations; lawyers and accountants in large professional service firms (PSFs) and sometimes in international and commercial organizations; pharmacists in national (retailing) companies; and engineers, journalists, performing artists, the armed forces and police find occupational control of their work and discretionary decision-making increasingly difficult to sustain.
The paper begins with a section on defining the field of professional work, professional practice and its learning. The paper continues with a second section on the concept of professionalism, its history and current developments. The third section of the paper considers the changes, challenges and opportunities of the practice of professional work within employing organizations. The fourth section of the paper identifies some of the important contributions made by researchers on professional work to public policy developments, assessment and evaluation.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Abbott, A. (1988). The system of professions: An essay on the division of expert labour. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Adler, P., Kwon, S., & Hecksher, C. (2008). Professional work: The emergence of collaborative community. Organization Science, 19, 359–376.
Annandale, E. (1998). The sociology of health and medicine. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Armstrong, P. (1985). Changing management control strategies: The role of competition between accountancy and other organizational professions. Accounting, Organization and Society, 10(2), 129–148.
Bolton, S. C. (2005). “Making up” managers: The case of NHS nurses. Work, Employment and Society, 19(1), 5–23.
Born, G. (1995). Rationalizing culture: IRCAM, Boulez and the institutionalization of the musical avant-garde. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Bourgeault, I. L., & Benoit, C. (2009). Comparative perspectives on the sociology of professions groups. Current Sociology, Monograph Issue, 57(4), 475–485.
Bourgeault, I. L., Benoit, C., & Davis-Floyd, R. (2004). Reconceiving midwifery. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Boussard, V. (2008). Sociologie de la gestion: les faiseurs de performance. Paris: Editions Belin.
Brante, T. (2010). Professional fields and truth regimes: In search of alternative approaches. Comparative Sociology, 9, 843–886.
Brint, S. (1994). In an age of experts: The changing role of professionals in politics and public life. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Brint, S. (2001). Professions and the “knowledge economy”: Rethinking the theory of post-industrial society. Current Sociology, 49, 101–132.
Brint, S. (2006). Saving the ‘soul of professions’: Freidson’s institutional ethics and the defence of professional autonomy. Knowledge, Work and Society, 4(2), 101–129.
Broadbent, J., Jacobs, K., & Laughlin, R. (1999). Comparing schools in the UK and New Zealand. Management Accounting Research, 10, 339–361.
Burchell, G., Gordon, C., & Miller, P. (Eds.). (1991). The Foucault effect: Studies in governmentality. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Burrage, M., & Torstendahl, R. (Eds.). (1990a). Professions in theory and history: Rethinking the study of the professions. London: Sage.
Burrage, M., & Torstendahl, R. (Eds.). (1990b). The formation of professions: Knowledge, state and strategy. London: Sage.
Carr-Saunders, A. M., & Wilson, P. A. (1933). The professions. Oxford: Clarendon.
Carvalho, T. (2008, June 5–7). Redefining professional frontiers in health: negotiations in the field. Paper presented at conference, interim meeting of ESA Research Network on ‘sociology of professions’, Aarhus, Denmark.
Champy, F. (2008, June 5–7). Where does the “power” go when professionals lose part of their knowledge-based autonomy? French architects and “formal rationalization”. Paper presented at conference, interim meeting of ESA Research Network on ‘sociology of professions’, Aarhus, Denmark.
Champy, F. (2009). Overcoming the double-bind of the sociology of professions. Paper presented at ESA conference, Lisbon, RN19.
Champy, F. (2011). Nouvelle thèorie sociologie des professions. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
Coburn, D. (2006). Medical dominance then and now: Critical reflections’. Health Sociology Review, 15(5), 432–443.
Collins, R. (1979). The credential society: An historical sociology of education and stratification. New York: Academic.
Collins, R. (1981). Crises and declines in credential systems. In Sociology since midcentury: Essays in theory cumulation. New York: Academic.
Considine, M. (2001). Enterprising states: The public management of welfare-to-work. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cooper, D., Lowe, A., Puxty, A., Robson, K., & Willmott, H. (1988, January). Regulating the UK accountancy profession: Episodes in the relation between the profession and the state. Paper presented at the ESRC conference on corporatism at the Policy Studies Institute, London, England.
Crompton, R. (1990). Professions in the current context. Work, Employment and Society, Special Issue 4, 147–166.
Dahl, H. M. (2008, June 5–7). New public management and new professionalism: ambiguities and struggles. Paper presented at conference, interim meeting of ESA Research Network on ‘sociology of professions’, Aarhus, Denmark.
Davies, C. (1995). Gender and the professional predicament in nursing. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Davies, C. (1996). The sociology of professions and the profession of gender. Sociology, 30(4), 661–678.
Dent, M., Kirkpatrick, I., Kragh Jespersen, P., & Neo Y. I. (2008, June 5–7). Medicine and management in a comparative perspective: Denmark and the UK. Paper presented at conference, interim meeting of ESA Research Network on ‘sociology of professions’, Aarhus, Denmark.
Dingwall, R. (1996). Professions and social order in a global society. Plenary paper presented at the ISA Working Group 02 conference, Nottingham, UK.
Dingwall, R. (2008). Essays on professions (Ashgate classics in sociology ). Burlington: Aldershot.
Dingwall, R., & King, M. D. (1995). Herbert Spencer and the professions: Occupational ecology reconsidered. Sociological Theory, 13(1), 14–24.
Dingwall, R., & Lewis, P. (Eds.). (1983). The sociology of the professions: Lawyers, doctors and others. London: Macmillan.
du Gay, P., & Salaman, G. (1992, September). The cult[ure] of the customer. Journal of Management Studies, 29(5), 615–633.
Dubar, C. (2000). La Crise des Identités: l’interprétation d’une mutation. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
Durkheim, E. (1992). Professional ethics and civic morals. London: Routledge.
Etzioni, A. (1969). The semi-professionals and their organization: Teachers, nurses and social workers. New York: Free Press.
Evetts, J. (1994). Becoming a secondary headteacher. London: Cassell.
Evetts, J. (1998, July 26–August 1). Analysing the projects of professional associations: National and international dimensions. Unpublished paper presented at ISA Congress, Montreal.
Evetts, J. (2003). The sociological analysis of professionalism: Occupational change in the modern world. International Sociology, 18(2), 395–415.
Evetts, J. (2006, January). Short note: ‘The sociology of professional groups: New directions’. Current Sociology, 54(1), 133–143. ISSN 0011-3921.
Evetts, J. (Ed.). (2008). Professional work in Europe: Concepts, theories and methodologies. Special Issue of European Societies, 10(4), 525–544.
Evetts, J. (2009). The management of professionalism: A contemporary paradox. In S. Gewirtz, P. Mahony, I. Hextall, & A. Cribb (Eds.), Changing teacher professionalism: International trends, challenges and ways forward (pp. 19–30). London: Routledge.
Farrell, C., & Morris, J. (2003). The neo-bureaucratic state: Professionals, managers and professional managers in schools, general practices and social work. Organization, 10(1), 129–156.
Faulconbridge, J. R., & Muzio, D. (2008). Organizational professionalism in globalizing law firms. Work, Employment and Society, 22, 7–25.
Flood, J. (2011, July). The re-landscaping of the legal profession: Large law firms and professional re-regulation. In D. Muzio and I. Kirkpatrick (Eds.), Reconnecting professional occupations and professional organizations. Current Sociology, 59(4): monograph 2, 507–529. London: Sage.
Fournier, V. (1999). The appeal to “professionalism” as a disciplinary mechanism. Social Review, 47(2), 280–307.
Freidson, E. (1982). Occupational autonomy an labor market shelters. In P. L. Steward & M. G. Cantor (Eds.), Varieties of work (pp. 39–54). Beverley Hills: Sage.
Freidson, E. (1983). The theory of professions: State of the art. In R. Dingwall & R. Lewis (Eds.), The sociology of professions. London: Macmillan.
Freidson, E. (1994). Professionalism reborn: Theory, prophecy and policy. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Freidson, E. (2001). Professionalism: The third logic. London: Polity Press.
Gewirtz, S., Mahony, P., Hextall, I., & Cribb, A. (Eds.). (2009). Changing teacher professionalism: International trends, challenges and ways forward. London: Routledge.
Goldthorpe, J. (1982). On the service class, its formation and future. In A. Giddens & G. MacKenzie (Eds.), Classes and the division of labour: Essays in honour of Ilya Neustadt (pp. 162–185). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Greenwood, E. (1957). The attributes of a profession. Social Work, 2, 44–55.
Grelon, A. (1996). Ingenieurs et risques technologiques dans le chimie industrielle en France. Paper presented at ISA Working Group 02 conference, Nottingham.
Halliday, T. C. (1987). Beyond monopoly: Lawyers, state crises and professional empowerment. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hanlon, G. (1998). Professionalism as enterprise: Service class politics and the redefinition of professionalism. Sociology, 32, 43–64.
Hanlon, G. (1999). Lawyers, the state and the market: Professionalism revisited. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Hawkins, K. (Ed.). (1992). The uses of discretion. Oxford: Clarendon.
Hoggett, P. (1996). New modes of control in the public services. Public Administration, 74(1), 9–32.
Hughes, E. C. (1958). Men and their work. New York: Free Press.
Johnson, T. (1972). Professions and power. London: Macmillan.
Johnson, T. (1992, November 19–20). The internationalization of expertise. Paper given to conference: Sociology of occupational groups, Paris.
Karpik, L. (1989). Le désintéressement. Annales, Economies Socitétés Civilisations, 3, 733–751.
Kuhlmann, E. (2006). Modernising health care. Reinventing professions, the state and the public. Bristol: The Policy Press.
Kuhlmann, E. (2008, June 5–7). Unsettling the power-knowledge nexus in professionalism: multiple dynamics in healthcare. Paper presented at conference, interim meeting of ESA Research Network on ‘sociology of professions’, Aarhus, Denmark.
Lane, J.-E. (2000). New public management. London: Routledge & Kegan.
Langer, A. (2008, June 5–7). Academic qualification programmes for professional management: Managerial expertise as one facet of a new professionalism. Paper presented at conference, interim meeting of ESA Research Network on ‘sociology of professions’, Aarhus, Denmark.
Langer, A., & Schrőer, A. (Eds.). (2011). Professionalisierung im nonprofit management. Heidelberg: Vs Verlag.
Larkin, G. (1983). Occupational monopoly and modern medicine. London: Tavistock.
Larson, M. S. (1977). The rise of professionalism. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Liljegren, A. (2012). Pragmatic professionalism: Micro-level discourse in social work. European Journal of Social Work, 15(3), 295–312.
MacDonald, K. M. (1995). The sociology of professions. London: Sage.
Marshall, T. H. (1950). Citizenship and social class and other essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McClellend, C. E. (1990). Escape from freedom? Reflections on German professionalization 1870–1933. In M. Burrage & R. Torstendahl (Eds.), The formation of professions: Knowledge, state and strategy (pp. 97–113). London: Sage.
Milburn, P. (1996). Les territoires professionnels et la négociation experte du réel: compatibilté des modèles théoriques. Paper presented at ISA Working Group 02 conference, Nottingham.
Miller, P., & Rose, N. (1990). Governing economic life. Economy and Society, 19(1), 1–31.
Mintzberg, H. (1983). Structure in fives: Designing effective organizations. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.
Noordegraaf, M. (2007). From pure to hybrid professionalism: Present day professionalism in ambiguous public domains. Administration and Society, 39(6), 761–785.
Olgiati, V., Orzack, L. H., & Saks, M. (Eds.). (1998). Professions, identity and order in comparative perspective. Onati: The International Institute for the Sociology of Law.
Olofsson, G. (2009). The coming of the proto-professions – A third stage of professionalization?. Paper presented at ESA conference, Lisbon, RN19.
Orzack, L. H. (1998). Professions and world trade diplomacy: National systems of international authority. In V. Olgiati, L. Orzack, & M. Saks (Eds.), Professions, identity and order in comparative perspective (Onati papers, Vol. 4/5). Onati: International Institute for the Sociology of Law, 13–38.
Parsons, T. (1939). The professions and social structure. Social Forces, 17, 457–467.
Pavlin, S., Svetlik, I., & Evetts, J. (2010). Revisiting the role of formal and practical knowledge from a sociology of professions perspective: The case of Slovenia. Current Sociology, 58(1), 94–118.
Ruiz Ben, E. (2009), Professionalism patterns in the internationalization of information work. Paper presented at ESA conference, Lisbon, RN19.
Saks, M. (1995). Professions and the public interest: Medical power, altruism and alternative medicine. London: Routledge.
Schepers, R. (2006). Regulation and trust in action: The subtle balance between doctors and management in two Belgian hospitals. Current Sociology, 54(4), 637–648.
Sciulli, D. (2005). Continental sociology of professions today: Conceptual contributions. Current Sociology, 53(6), 915–942.
Svensson, L., & Evetts, J. (Eds.). (2003). Conceptual and comparative studies of continental and Anglo-American professions (Goteborg studies in sociology, Vol. 129). Goteborg: Goteborg University.
Svensson, L., & Evetts, J. (Eds.). (2010). Sociology of professions. Continental and Anglo-Saxon traditions. Goteborg: Daidalos.
Tawney, R. H. (1921). The acquisitive society. New York: Harcourt Bruce.
Trépos, J. (1996). Une modelisation des jugements d’experts: catégories et instruments de mesure. Paper presented at ISA Working Group 02 conference, Nottingham.
Verpraet, G. (2009). Knowledge professions between market professionalism and professional autonomy: The adequation of sociological typologies. Paper presented at ESA conference, Lisbon, RN19.
Wilensky, H. L. (1964). The professionalization of everyone? American Journal of Sociology, 70(2), 137–158.
Witz, A. (1992). Professions and patriarchy. London: Routledge.
Wrede, S. (2008, June 5–7). An erasure of professionalism in the caring occupations? The organizational discourse of flexibility and the fragmentation of occupational identities. Paper presented at conference, interim meeting of ESA Research Network on ‘sociology of professions’, Aarhus, Denmark.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Evetts, J. (2014). The Concept of Professionalism: Professional Work, Professional Practice and Learning. In: Billett, S., Harteis, C., Gruber, H. (eds) International Handbook of Research in Professional and Practice-based Learning. Springer International Handbooks of Education. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8902-8_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8902-8_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-017-8901-1
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-8902-8
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawEducation (R0)