Professional capital contested: A bourdieusian analysis of conflicts between professionals and managers

Although Bourdieu paid scant attention to (and in fact discredited) the notion of professionalism, his social theory is well-equipped to understand the evolution of professional work. Professionalism can be conceived as a set of symbolic resources that (re)produce an occupational order, favoring expertise and craftsmanship. In neo-liberal economies this order is contested and professional powers are distrusted; professional work is seen as closed-off and conservative. Managers have become important vehicles for rationalizing and innovating production, and improving "value for money." In fact, managerial "fields" are created, and conflicts between managerial and professional fields are well documented. These conflicts are ironic, as new classes of managers seek classic strategies of professionalization as well as classic forms of professional capital for securing managerial positions. They form professional associations, for instance, and invest in schooling, credentials and work codes. This paper explores conflicts between professionals and managers as "contests over symbolic capital." We argue that professional capital is appropriated by managers in order to distinguish "new" from "old" professional work in larger economized fields of power

Designing to Debias: Measuring and Reducing Public Managers’ Anchoring Bias

Public managers’ decisions are affected by cognitive biases. For instance, employees’ previous year's performance ratings influence new ratings irrespective of actual performance. Nevertheless, experimental knowledge of public managers’ cognitive biases is limited, and debiasing techniques have rarely been studied. Using a survey experiment on 1,221 public managers and employees in the United Kingdom, this research (1) replicates two experiments on anchoring to establish empirical generalization across institutional contexts and (2) tests a consider-the-opposite debiasing technique. The results indicate that anchoring bias replicates in a different institutional context, although effect sizes differ. Furthermore, a low-cost, low-intensity consider-the-opposite technique mitigates anchoring bias in this survey experiment. An exploratory subgroup analysis indicates that the effect of the intervention depends on context. The next step is to test this strategy in real-world settings

Protective and connective professionalism: What we have learned and what we still would like to learn

This essay begins with a contribution from Mirko Noordegraaf, author of the 2020 ‘From Protective to Connective Professionalism’ article that initiated this series of exchanges in the Journal of Professions and Organization (JPO). Then, wrapping up this series, David Brock, JPO Editor-in-Chief, looks back at protective and connective constructs in our literature, and suggests several research directions. Our aim is not to close the debate, but to open it up and connect it to promising research avenues, newly arising research strands and promising publications

Protective and connective professionalism: What we have learned and what we still would like to learn

This essay begins with a contribution from Mirko Noordegraaf, author of the 2020 ‘From Protective to Connective Professionalism’ article that initiated this series of exchanges in the Journal of Professions and Organization (JPO). Then, wrapping up this series, David Brock, JPO Editor-in-Chief, looks back at protective and connective constructs in our literature, and suggests several research directions. Our aim is not to close the debate, but to open it up and connect it to promising research avenues, newly arising research strands and promising publications

Speaking Up and Activism Among Frontline Employees: How Professional Coping Influences Work Engagement and Intent to Leave Among Teachers

Demands that exceed time and resources place pressure on public professionals, resulting in coping behavior. This study aims to provide insight in the prevalence and consequences of taking a more active strategy, professional coping. Next to traditional forms of coping studied in public administration, studying active coping can result in more insight in when and with what consequences frontline employees speak up and resist pressures. We explore to what degree teachers use speaking out using professional norms as a way to tackle the pressures they face. Moreover, we analyze the relationship between professional coping, work engagement, and intent to leave as important indicators of how immersed frontline employees are in their work. Using survey data (n = 1,270) from primary school teachers, we conclude that professional coping is in general regularly but not very often applied, but that professional coping is related to higher work engagement and lower intent to leave. We conclude that studying active coping strategies can not only be important for street-level literature in gaining insight in all types of behavior and their consequences but also for public service providers aiming for an engaged workforce

Speaking Up and Activism Among Frontline Employees: How Professional Coping Influences Work Engagement and Intent to Leave Among Teachers

Demands that exceed time and resources place pressure on public professionals, resulting in coping behavior. This study aims to provide insight in the prevalence and consequences of taking a more active strategy, professional coping. Next to traditional forms of coping studied in public administration, studying active coping can result in more insight in when and with what consequences frontline employees speak up and resist pressures. We explore to what degree teachers use speaking out using professional norms as a way to tackle the pressures they face. Moreover, we analyze the relationship between professional coping, work engagement, and intent to leave as important indicators of how immersed frontline employees are in their work. Using survey data (n = 1,270) from primary school teachers, we conclude that professional coping is in general regularly but not very often applied, but that professional coping is related to higher work engagement and lower intent to leave. We conclude that studying active coping strategies can not only be important for street-level literature in gaining insight in all types of behavior and their consequences but also for public service providers aiming for an engaged workforce

How to evaluate the governance of transboundary problems? Assessing a national counterterrorism strategy

Wicked problems present major challenges for evaluation as they cross the boundaries between countries, policy domains, organizations, and scientific disciplines. They force evaluators to study large networks in order to trace extended chains of cause and effect. However, beyond this category of ‘regular’ wicked problems that cross boundaries, there is another class of even more complex problems that truly transcend boundaries. Problems such as terrorism, the global financial crisis, and climate change transcend distinctions between cause and effect, local and global problems, fact and impressions. These issues represent a class of transboundary wicked problems that are not about local challenges and uncertainty, but about globally connected events and ambiguity. We draw on the literature on wickedness, ambiguity, and transboundary issues, to formulate a transboundary evaluation approach capable of assessing the governance of these extremely complex problems. The usefulness of this perspective is demonstrated through our evaluation of the Dutch national counterterrorism strategy 2011–2015. We detail: (a) the evaluation framework which provided focus in a diffuse transboundary field; (b) the evaluation principles which guided us as evaluators; and (c) the evaluation conditions which allowed us to engage and empower the actors being evaluated. These components can together bolster the relevance and competence of evaluators in a complex world