Interactive identity work of professionals in management: a hospital case study

ABSTRACT

Hybrid professional managers appear less effective in introducing management into public professional settings than policymakers hope. To date, research has offered little understanding of professionals’ identity transition challenge and the role of social interactions underpinning this process. We studied the identity work of hybrid doctors inside a large public health-care organization, finding that it takes place through processes of familiarizing with management, rationalizing being a hybrid, and legitimizing the new role-identity. We contribute to the literature by showing that identity work is distributed and enabled by social interactions beyond the professional group. Implications for policymakers and executives are discussed.     

论图书馆人的图书馆精神

图书馆职业精神是图书馆工作实践中稳定的行为风尚。新时期赋予它新的内涵,应是公仆精神、科学精神、人文精神、进取精神、创新精神等的有机结合。构成稳定的图书馆职业思想行为风尚,树立和弘扬图书馆精神,是图书馆事业永远发展进步的科学保障。     

From Impartial Advocates to Political Agents: Role Switching and Trustworthiness in Consultancy

Consultancy firms inform, advise, implement and mediate in their own interests and in the interests of their clients. We can only guess if their work is also in the interest of the public. There is no critical and systematical assessment of the behavior of consultancy firms. What roles do consultancy firms chose? And what arguments do they use? In the nineties the international consultancy firm Hill &; Knowlton took on two assignments that showed a remarkable difference in the required role the firm had to play. In the first role the firm acted as an impartial advocate, in the second role the firm acted as a political agent. An analysis of the argumentation for both roles shows us the familair short-sighted choice for the annual turnover at the cost of internal and external trustworthiness. In this decade consultancy firms will need to develop ethical assessments that meet more professional standards.     

环卫工人职业化可行性研究——以浑南和沈北为例

习主席指出的中国梦是民族梦,也是每个中国人的梦,必须靠人民实现,为人民造福。承办第十二届全国运动会是辽宁人的骄傲,沈阳的城市形象是辽宁人的名片,而名片的书写离不开沈阳所有环卫工人的共同努力。本方案以环卫工人职业化为切入点,对我市环卫工人未来的职业化发展趋势进行了可行性研究。以建设和谐中国为背景,以共同建造中国梦为主题,详细了解环卫工人目前的工作环境,工资待遇等现状,并就其中存在的问题进行了探讨和分析。通过与环卫部门领导、指导教师的交流,结合环卫工人自身表述,提出了沈阳市以沈北和浑南两区为例的环卫工人职业化的可行性实施建议方案。     

Tourism in China and professionalism: An insider's perspective

This paper starts with an overview of tourism development in China in the past two decades. While highlighting much of the government initiative which makes progress possible, it tries to pinpoint the primary cause of the existing problems China faces. It is the lack of professionalism, which can be found in government decision making, business management and operation, education and training. The solutions will come mainly from the inside, and one can see efforts being made by policy‐makers and the front‐line people, but it is believed that overseas professionals have a positive role to play, as they have done in China's hospitality industry in the past.     

艾滋病、“现身”媒介的合法性与权利行动的可能——基于《人民日报》与都市报的文本研究

在中国,“同志”一直是一个讳莫如深的媒介议题,作为性存在的一种方式,同志得以“现身”传统大众媒介,往往与某个固定化了的范畴相互勾连,而这些范畴随着时间（历时性的变化）与空间（不同地域）的变化,成为不同的连接点,连接作为群体的同志与国家话语。因此,本文力图透过《人民日报》（1949—2009）与20世纪90年代兴起的以都市报、周末报为代表的市场化报纸等媒介文本,梳理出自改革开放以来,两类报纸勾连同志与国家话语的诸多连接点及其差异,以及这些变化背后深刻的政治与文化意义。     

‘Passionate and professional’: reconciling logics in public service accounting

In order to deliver public value, the UK government sought to build relationships and connect ‘the public’ with public servants (including back-office workers), but with what effect? Drawing on interviews with public service accountants, the authors found that how these accountants conceptualized ‘the public’—as society or people—shaped whether public value was considered as a monetary or moral concept. Accountants who regarded the public as people spoke of an improper level of involvement and struggled to maintain their professionalism.     

Professionalism: A Virtue or Estrangement from Self-activity?

This paper attempts to clarify the meaning of the term ‚professional’ in its current use in our daily lives, mainly by making use of Weber’s discussion of the Protestant work ethic and rationalization. Identifying professionalism primarily as a particular lifestyle, it questions whether professionalism is a virtue to be encouraged or an alienated way of life. Rather than conclusively answering this question in the affirmative or negative, it contends that professionalism is an evolving concept, and endeavors to capture and formulate a favorable understanding of it which would foster less alienating and more fulfilling ways of doing business. It concludes by observing structural similarities between alternative managerial approaches and different conceptualizations of professionalism. Baris Parkan is Faculty member and Coordinator of the Evening MA Program in Applied Ethics in the Department of Philosophy at Middle East Technical University.     

Policy Issues Raised by For-Profit Spinoffs from Professional Associations: An Evaluation of a Recent AICPA Initiative

This paper provides an evaluation of the spinoff of a for-profit company from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), a nonprofit professional association. The evaluation is based on a review of the literature on public policy issues surrounding organizational conversions from nonprofit to for-profit legal status. Many criticisms of this for-profit spinoff were voiced by professional leaders and accounting regulators, and we demonstrate that these criticisms are grounded in widely recognized policy principles relating to nonprofit conversions. The public policy issues raised by this study have implications for the governance of professional associations in all disciplines.     

Professional Ethics in a Virtual World: The Impact of the Internet on Traditional Notions of Professionalism

Numerous articles in the popular press together with an examination of websites associated with the medical, legal, engineering, financial, and other professions leave no doubt that the role of professions has been impacted by the Internet. While offering the promise of the democratization of expertise – expertise made available to the public at convenient times and locations and at an affordable cost – the Internet is also driving a reexamination of the concept of professional identity and related claims of expertise and standards of integrity.This paper begins with a presentation of case studies illustrating the ease by which impostors infiltrate the ranks of professionals. Reports of individuals masquerading as professionals via the Internet often reveal that these imposters cause harm to the unwary victims who rely on assertions of professional expertise. Such reports motivated the authors to examine the origins and evolution of the traditional roles of professions and professionals in today’s society, as well as question how, or whether, the standards for professional practice have been adapted to the challenges posed by technology, i.e., do statements of professional ethics provide a ‘guiding light’ for practitioners and their clients in the cyber age? The authors challenge the professions to consider the notion that technology forces a confrontation between the guild-like aspects of a profession that have served, on the one hand, to protect a profession from encroachment and, on the other hand, have purportedly protected the public.The authors conclude by presenting an examination of websites that show recognition of the challenges that the Internet poses to professionalism, as we have known it. Detailed discussion of the websites of two professions illustrates different approaches to responding to these challenges.