International audienceThis article develops and demonstrates the utility of a framework for understanding professionals' reactions to strategic change in professional service firms as an interplay between a strategic intent, its manifestation in organizational roles and practices and its fit with existing professional identities. The application of the framework with three case studies shows that strategic changes may threaten different aspects of professional identities (self-enhancement, self-continuity and self-distinctiveness) which in turn tends to lead to different kinds of resistance from the professionals (exit, voice for opposition or voice for renegotiation). The article also links these different reactions to the locus of identification of professionals, which may be either 'local' or 'cosmopolitan'
With the introduction into public organizations of management methods borrowed from the private sector, 'new public management' often comes across as a factor that weakens professional autonomy. Cultural industry is no exception to this phenomenon, as demonstrated by the case of the facilitators or interpreters in France (médiateurs culturels). However, a careful study of the development of this occupation does reveal that, rather than a strict opposition between a professional logic and managerial logic, hybridization is possible. Indeed, professional groups can benefit from the establishment of methods that structure their activity and that take on board the dynamics of knowledge and career pathways.
Points for practitionersThe research presented here raises the question of how to reconcile the streamlining of public activities (new public management approaches) with the challenges of preserving or developing professions. Practitioners can thus see, through a case study and the presentation of a generic grid analysis, the different ways of structuring and managing the professions, with the emphasis on adopting an approach that ensures coherence between the skills necessary for each activity and the skills defined and career paths offered to the players. Far from being at odds, this kind of articulation makes it possible Downloaded from to hybridize the organizational logic of the new public management with the professional logic of the professions.
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