The Appeal to ‘Professionalism’ as a Disciplinary Mechanism

Abstract

The paper examines the deployment of 'professional' discourses in occupational domains not traditionally associated with the professions (eg management, clerical or sales staff are turned into 'providers of professional services'). It first proposes to analyse professionalism as a disciplinary logic which inscribes 'autonomous' professional practice within a network of accountability and governs professional conduct at a distance. It is argued that professional labour is autonomous labour where the conditions of autonomy have already been inscribed in particular forms of conduct embodied in the notion of 'professional competence'. The paper then suggests that the appeal to the discursive resources of professionalism in new occupational domains potentially acts as a disciplinary mechanism that serves to profess 'appropriate' work identities and conducts. The extension of the disciplinary logic of professionalism is illustrated with the turn to competencies to regulate managerial work in Teamco, a large privatised service company. However, the final section of the paper cautions against a deterministic analysis of the disciplinary logic of professionalism in regulating employees' conduct, and suggests that the constructed and contestable nature of professionalism makes it an inevitably imperfect form of government.

Defining a Profession: The Role of Knowledge and Expertise

“…This is illustrated by Fournier (1999) in recruitment and advertising, who accentuates the importance of the ideology of professionalism in work contexts. Cohen, Wilkinson, Arnold and Finn (2005) build on this approach in analysing architects' accounts of the purpose and process of their own occupation in the public and private sector, which are particularly focused on the role of creative knowledge and expertise.…”

The clinical governance of the soul: ‘deep management’ and the self-regulating subject in integrated community mental health teams

“…The 'self-regulating capacities' (Miller & Rose, 1990) The value participants attach to working with clients has effected the seepage of self-management into the professional culture of these participants. In the absence of formal support and guidance from their senior colleagues they have effectively become self-regulating so that professionalism itself has become a disciplinary mechanism (Fournier, 1999). Thus, much as managers in commercial life have been encouraged to abandon the role of controller and become empowering facilitators of staff, where staff themselves are encouraged to take on the mission of enterprise, it is as if a similar process has happened serendipitously here.…”

Higher apprenticeships in England: professional and vocational formation

“…Weaker formation structures tend to be located in sectors characterised by labour intensive work process and low levels of skill requirements, where notions of professionalism are absent, or perhaps used primarily to discipline and motivate (Fournier, 1999), rather than to build social legitimation or a coherent identity. In sectors such as Social Care, Hospitality or Retail, work often requires repetitive physical tasks and constant contact with customers, and employees often experience poor job security, shiftwork and low pay (Lloyd, Mason and Mayhew, 2008).…”