Bureaucratic organisation of professional labour

Abstract

The proletarianisation of the professions arguments claim that salaried employment compromises the professional status of employees. Much of the literature on salaried professionalism claims that the integration of profes sionals into bureaucracies is problematic because professionals identify with their profession rather than the employing organisation. It is argued that since professionals control their own certification and performance standards and have separate sources of legitimacy within their professions, the move to employee status is problematic. The ultimate conflict within these organisations is between the autonomy of professionals and the control of administrators. The more recent human organisation literature challenges this argument by demonstrating that professional behaviour is shifting toward a type of group orientation in which the organisational and personal/professional loyalties are more likely to coincide. The dynamics of professional bureaucracies have changed as more and more of the traditionally free professionals, such as doctors and lawyers, make a permanent move to employee status.