Professions claim jurisdiction over a deep, discrete area of knowledge (Abbott 1988, pp.59–85).
Universities have thus been fundamental to the transformation of the professions, both for their students and the professional academics who staff them (Freidson 1986, pp.15–59). As the acquisition of knowledge became central to control, training by apprenticeship gave way to formal prior education at university, exposing novices to cognitive standardisation. Larson (1977, pp.36–45) sees this as a vital step in the formation of professional unity with a shared and common understanding and orientation. It homogenises the professional association, therefore establishment of a monopoly over training is key to stability. Eventually, she argues, it becomes difficult to criticise eminent practitioners without criticising the structures of legitimation which attest to their qualification and knowledge. Similarly, once a project is sufficiently progressed for an orthodoxy to be established through control of a body of
knowledge, non-qualified practitioners can be criticised for their charlatanism and quackery (Johnson 1972, p.57) which is eventually used to justify monopoly.
Medicine is the “first amongst equals” of the professions (Crook, 2008) therefore one might expect medical education to be the seminal case. Physicians have long been required to be certified by a Royal College, however fellowship was originally restricted to graduates of the universities. This was absolutely not however because this guaranteed vocation learning: the insistence on graduate entry was to maintain the dignity and social status of the profession; early medical degrees had little to no medical content, there being very little scientific medical knowledge to learn (Reader 1966, pp.16–20; Larson 1977, p.4; Collins, 1990).
Education outside work is expensive, thus credentialed professions must achieve a monopoly on practice (or at least a sufficient premium) to have the prospect of recouping that investment (Larson 1977, p.15) and universities must ensure that their product is relevant to the job market.
Professionals are socialised and educated at university and go on to learn the practical vocational aspects during the pre-qualification work period. Universities teach theory rather than train, such that the knowledge imparted is timeless and theoretical. There exists therefore an interplay between academic practice and professional practice, with the possibility of the academics and practitioners sharing a discipline but not fully each other’s working contexts (Becher, 1990).
An early step in the formation of a profession is the institutionalisation of control of entry, ethical conduct, discipline and quality (Lunt, 2008), of which credentials are a crucial stage. The formation of a central, controlling body to maintain standards condenses a group of like individuals into a coherent actor to which the state may corporately delegate jurisdiction (Freidson 1994, p.173) and which legitimates the claim to status through recognisable professional symbols (Greenwood et al., 2002). Whether this represents the coordinated will of those individuals or the translation of the concerns of another actor will be explored later in the discussion of Actor–Network Theory. It is however well-established amongst the major writers (Freidson 1986, p.58; Larson 1977, p.5; 2013, p.xxiv) that it is the presence of a well-motivated and effective campaign by such a body which is significant in terms of progress, more so even than the quality of the claim itself. Larson (1977, pp.25–31) argues for example that engineering should have no inherent disadvantage compared to medicine in terms of status, but that the organisation of and claim by the latter was more effective, in part because the layperson has a more direct sense of success for a tangible engineered product (see also Freidson 1970, p.22).
According to many professionalisation models (for example Wilensky (1964) and for the first qualification by apothecaries in Reader (1966, p.52)), once specialists emerge and desire
certification of their specialist skills, influence is obtained first by the establishment of an association, then ultimately by this body establishing a monopoly over an area of knowledge, ideally granted by the state (Wilensky, 1964; Macdonald 1995, p.66; Freidson 1994, p.173).
Unlike mainland European models (Neal and Morgan, 2000; Collins, 1990) which prefer top-down regulatory action by the authorities, Anglo–American governments have been wary of granting this delegation of power; candidates must first show that there is some greater public need which is thus answered (Macdonald 1995, p.199; Millerson 1964, p.216), and then that a profession has “the especially reliable knowledge by which to make decisions in the lay interest” (Freidson 1988, p.338). It is thus no surprise to see concerns about handing power to a professional body being raised in the current American debate (see NRC, 2013).
Professions must organise themselves into distinct roles, and delegate routine tasks to semi-professions or between the profession’s elite and its junior ranks (see the discussion of medicine in Larson 1977, pp.38–43). Nursing for example grew from craft to science-led profession, but its progress was hampered by failure to agree internal strata or create a professional identity (Elzinga, 1990). State control is often extended to the use of a title identity, linked to trusted roles such as “doctor” (Freidson 1986, p.65). A consideration of known and accepted roles in Information Security is therefore essential, as is whether a hierarchy of specialities is known and accepted.
Ultimately the professional is selling their learned wisdom; they are the “gatekeepers of desirable services or goods” (Freidson 1986, p.166) and credentialed professionals achieve that gateway status through exclusion. In the absence of regulation, credentials may gain de facto qualification status or count towards an unofficial tally of professional “points” (Freidson 1986, pp.63–81), but the ultimate goal of professionalisation is to control the production of the producers. The professional body must own the education and formation process in order to establish the necessary knowledge-superiority of professional over client (Larson 1977, pp.48–
50). Credentials are required as markers for those seeking competent specialist advice (Freidson 1994, p.159; Collins, 1990). Their knowledge must have an apparently scientific and unified basis so that the knowledge foundation of the profession appears to be objective and dissociated with the preferences or opinions of the practitioner; the credential legitimates the professional’s opinion by being rooted in the entire profession and not the fallible word of the individual (Larson 1977, p.41; Wilensky, 1964). A binary status of qualified or not supported by a body of peers supports a claim to self-governance (Johnson 1972, p.55) particularly where this claim is based on the blessing of the neutral state (Larson 1977, p.70). What then if others suppress that independence?
2.3.7 Deprofessionalisation
Professions have the privilege of self-regulation (Larson 1977, p.x). Professionals generally accept technical control only by superordinate members of their profession, outside lay matters such as institutional targets and resources (Freidson 1986, pp.154–166). Much of the work in the field however concentrates on the suggestion that the professions have declined in influence (power) and independence as they have traded autonomy in sole practice for positions in bureaucratic organisations (Evetts, 2003; Clark, 2005). This external socialising force on internal workers leads to conflicting loyalties to employer and profession (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983).
Kahn et al. (1964) describe role conflict as “the simultaneous occurrence of two or more sets of pressures, such that compliance with one would make compliance with the other more difficult”. In itself Liu et al. (2001) found this to be a highly destructive event, associated with low job satisfaction and high propensity to leave, however they also found that a strong commitment to the profession moderated this effect as the professional would ally themselves principally with the profession and avoid the conflict. Moreover, aside from mere conflict Evetts (2003) argues that the modern professional is being entranced by romantic notions of status and dignity into being controlled by a species of imposed professionalisation (with its attendant high output, best practice and dedication to duty). This is even more relevant to this present study when one considers the necessity of intention towards seeking status on a professionalisation campaign (Millerson 1964, p.49; 1964, p.187), thus examining this intent is key.
“Deprofessionalisation” must be seen in context; professionals have always been employed even when in sole practice or retained by a patron, and thus have never had absolute control of their work (Freidson 1986, pp.110–123). Furthermore Kitchener (2000) found that when senior medics took up posts as clinical directors and gained financial responsibility, whilst they did adapt to bureaucratic priorities, the case for deprofessionalisation as hypothesised was less clear. Freidson’s “Third Logic” thesis (2001) positions ideal professional work between the extremes of bureaucratic control and market whim, as an example of a useful way to organise knowledge-based bespoke work. This is echoed by Fournier (1999) who sees the professionalised ethic and work-identity (with its emphasis on self-development and high levels of competence) as a positive model for controlling complex work within modern organisations.
Much modern writing therefore disputes the centrality of independence and emphasises the opportunities for the modern profession to control an area of work within large organisations (Muzio et al., 2013) and the hybrid nature of manager–professionals (Noordegraaf, 2007). It is to this more modern world that the chapter now turns.