“To define profession is to invite controversy.”
(Cogan 1955, p.105) Whilst professions are hugely significant for both citizen and corporation alike, representing some of society's most powerful and influential entities (Abbot 1988, p.1), it is not clear precisely how a profession truly differs from any other occupation. A profession, as understood in earlier studies, is an occupation whose competent undertaking is important; it is considered at least partially altruistic and a valuable service to society, or “good” work (Freidson 1994, p.200). It requires substantial, abstract knowledge learned as theory, which is then combined with judgement and practical skills to be applied to the particular situation of a client in an ethical manner, to a standard acceptable in the eyes of their peers; standards are typically maintained through membership of an institution which issues credentials and can revoke these for misbehaviour or incompetence (Millerson 1964, pp.148–180). Since the professions typically handle sensitive information and the vital interests of their client (Evetts, 2013), their probity must be beyond question (Reader 1966, p.159); where the state has been persuaded that sufficient risk is associated with incompetent or unethical practice and hence caveat emptor is not desirable (Larson 1977, p.49), and that there exists a body which can regulate it and agitates for that (Freidson 1986, p.35), membership of this institution becomes mandatory and the professionalisation process (or “project”) is complete.
As a result of the training, knowledge and ethical standards achieved (and responsibility which flows from technical autonomy) the profession is usually granted high status by society and frequently able to charge a high fee (Cogan, 1955; Gorman and Sandefur, 2011; Freidson 1994, p.200; Sciulli, 2007; Macdonald 1995, pp.157–171). The degree to which practitioners had associated, organised themselves and claimed monopoly over their areas of expertise was once seen as a continuum on which all professions could be placed, assessed by case study (Abbott, 1988; Gorman and Sandefur, 2011; Greenwood, 1957). The full profession then is at heart a bargain: the state awards control – over an area of knowledge so complex and esoteric that competence can only be judged by peers – to an organisation of practitioners in exchange for accepting responsibility to ensure that it is competently and ethically performed (Susskind and Susskind 2015, p.23; Freidson 1986, p.33).
The attempt to create a taxonomy of profession is often divided into the trait model – what specific behaviour, characteristics or properties mark out professions from other occupations – and the functionalist model– what function do they fulfil in society. The trait model could be seen as the positivist aspect of the field, concerned with developing a basis for empirically determining professional status (if criteria could be established), or even the degree of professionalisation if one assumes a calculable metric. The earliest attempt to establish an analytical literature is usually credited to the substantial (1933) trait-based work of Carr-Saunders and Wilson (Abbott 1988, p.4; Freidson 1986, p.27; Crook, 2008) who surveyed around thirty professions, almost entirely still extant and generally recognised (pp.7–288) followed by a comparison of the similarities and differences between them.
This was the start of a period of many such analyses and lists of criteria. Cogan’s (1955) attempted definition is typical:
“A profession is a vocation whose practice is founded upon an understanding of the theoretical structure of some department of learning or science, and upon the abilities accompanying such understanding. This understanding and these abilities are applied to the vital practical affairs of man. The practices of the profession are modified by knowledge of a generalized nature and by the accumulated wisdom and experience of mankind, which serve to correct the errors of specialism. The profession, serving the vital needs of man, considers its first ethical imperative to be altruistic service to the client.”
(Cogan, 1955) Millerson however both created such a set of criteria and immediately challenged the concept.
His list itself is similar:
“a profession involves a skill based on theoretical knowledge
the skill requires training and education
the professional must demonstrate competence by passing a test
integrity is maintained by adherence to a code of conduct
the service is for the public good
the profession is organised”
(Millerson 1964, p.4)
Millerson himself notes however that these are descriptive of an ideal type; since even medicine has not always possessed all of the above therefore they cannot be considered essential. The distinctions identified were rarely theoretically-based, often being a simple retrospective deconstruction of the claims of existing dominant professions (Mangan, 2014). Furthermore, as Millerson goes on to show (1964, p.7), taking atheoretical assumptions that professions must
resemble prototypes leads to problems when work takes these as qualifying criteria. For example, the concept of deprofessionalisation (that professions have lost some essential component by moving from autonomous practice in small cells of practice to controlled work in managed bureaucracies) is based on acceptance of that autonomy as a criterion, however that acceptance is merely observational with little basis in an accepted “general theory” of the professions.
In search of alternative models, Susskind and Susskind (2015, p.15) cite the Wittgensteinian analogy repeated by Downie (1990) of four brothers sharing similar characteristics without being clearly identical. This is an alluring but unconvincing comparison, since fraternal similarity has an external rationale for the selection criterion, whereas to select on the basis of similarity without a theoretical basis and then define by that similarity is surely not a useful taxonomy for many purposes.
Ultimately therefore this attempt to create a strict definition of a nebulous concept by trait was unfruitful. More successful were functionalist descriptions of their role in society. Society needs to control that work which results in damage if performed badly, but is corporately inexpert, thus those with equivalent specialist knowledge must do the judging (Rueschemeyer, 1983).
Altruism for example, is seen here as not simply a trait but as a useful function in the ordering of society (Saks, 1995, p.15). Functionalists such as Parsons and Goode (e.g. 1960) looked for the essentials of a professional’s practice in its work context (Johnson 1972, p.37) and were granted their status in exchange for diligent execution of important and responsible work (Saks, 2012).
These earlier analyses tend to assume that professions are both clearly distinct in some manner from other occupations (Johnson 1972, p.10) and positive for society (reflecting their contemporary high social standing), seeing them as moral bulwarks in the maelstrom of social life and guards against an interfering state (Macdonald 1995, p.2; Johnson 1972, pp.21–38;
Millerson 1964, p.220). This can be overstated however and even in the early work there is acceptance of the possibility of self-interest (Saks 1995, p.16; Parsons, 1939) and a risk acknowledged in granting monopoly (Carr-Saunders and Wilson 1933, p.1). As will be seen below, even the relatively unquestioning early acceptance of the claims of professions to be a force for social good were short-lived. As the concept of profession is malleable according to the prevailing ordering of society, so is the attitude of its critics to its central claim: altruism.
What then of a definition? Simply, if it is possible for professions to be described from a theoretical basis, it has not yet occurred. In any case to be a profession involves subjective recognition not simply objective compliance with some criteria (Millerson 1964, p.9). As
Bennis (1973) noted, the act of even questioning one’s own professional status is a sign of insecurity and thus presumably a professional project which is not yet complete.
For some, establishing an exact definition is simply not important; the search for a precise definition is an unhelpful distraction (Evetts, 2003; 2006). For others (for example Freidson 1986, p.30) it is essential when drawing and comparing analyses of phenomena to ensure that all parties are comparing like concepts and are agreed on the scope and nature of the object studied, since the only practical alternative is for each to use their assumed working definition which remains unchallengeable. Moreover if you make an arbitrary choice of a certain subset of candidates without foundation, such as defining professions by their power or influence – as many did, for example Johnson and Freidson respectively – it surely becomes circular to then describe the attainment and abuse of power of professions as being inherent to the class. Others reflect the later, pragmatic position that a strict definition is unnecessary; provided that the writer can identify a subject and apply his chosen theory to it (Abbott 1988, p.318; Evetts, 2013) no further precision is necessary, given that there is “general agreement” about what constitutes a profession (Larson 1977, p.x).
There must be careful treatment of motive; status descriptions, as writers such as Macdonald (1995, p.3) describe them, became an attempt to describe one end of a continuum rather than a binary state. “Professional” is thus seen as purely adjectival, in the same way that defining someone as “educated” must either indicate a general state or that an arbitrary razor has been applied which suits the context. This view is dangerously attractive; for those looking to conduct case studies to assign or deny the status itself, the issue of definition is fundamental.
Interactionists looking to criticise the self-interested actions and unjustified status of the professions will not need to look for a point of acceptance on a continuum of professionalisation since they will gravitate towards the worst offenders (Evetts, 2013). It is perhaps convenient to avoid matters of definition where one’s thesis is one of criticising power and domination; a definition which included more lowly trades such as physiotherapists into professional status would rather upset a declamation of the huge financial rewards of membership of the professional caste, particularly as Hall (1968) suggested there is increased vocational feeling in lower-paid professions. Abbot’s interest was less judgemental, studying the interactions of the professions as they strive to maintain their status in existing spheres of knowledge and capture new domains as they open up (Abbott 1988; Macdonald 1995, p.33), thus definitional precision was simply less important than observing their creation.
As an important aside, a fundamental challenge was made by Ritzer (1973), who criticised focussing on the general rather than individual cases. He suggested that whereas a profession
could be placed on a continuum, the individual practitioner could themselves vary in professionalism, and indeed a “professional” could be any person discharging their duties in a competent and diligent manner; a polysemy which persists today and is often used in place of a definition in modern writing. Public acceptance of this alternative model undermines the claims of a professional to be, by virtue of their career alone, the possessor of any particular distinction.
Professionalism can today can be considered a question of moral and ethical choices in a particular organisational context rather than a binary state for which an occupation might qualify (Delattre and Ocler, 2013). It must be stressed though that this is not novel; in the fifteenth century the term meant all occupations and went on to mean work done sufficiently well to charge money (Freidson 1986, pp.22–23). Being “professional” has undergone so much change that it can now be seen simply as whatever it is perceived to be (Hanlon, 1998). Focus switched to the motivations of the agitators rather than the strict enumeration of qualifying criteria. Famously Hughes reported his “Damascene” conversion:
“in my own studies I passed from the false question ‘Is this occupation a profession’ to the more fundamental one ‘what are the circumstances in which people in an occupation attempt to turn it into a profession and themselves into professional people?’”
(Hughes, 1963 cited in Macdonald 1995, p.6).
To conclude therefore, this study should not attempt to simply classify but rather describe. The aspects which are relevant to such a description will now be reviewed.