S. Ackroyd, ORGANIZATION CONTRA ORGANIZATIONS - PROFESSIONS AND ORGANIZATIONAL-CHANGE IN THE UNITED-KINGDOM, Organization studies, 17(4), 1996, pp. 599-621
Professions in the United Kingdom have been periodically marginalized
and The Management their growth suspended, but they have shown conside
rable capacity to adapt. The evolution of 'new model' professions at t
he end of the last century and the beginning of the present one, which
occurred without governmental regulation or patronage, was associated
with the development of an effective and independent form of occupati
onal organization for professional groups. This organization combines
control of the labour market with informal cooperation and control wit
hin employing organizations, and is identified as a form of occupation
al 'double closure'. It is characteristic for occupations organized in
this sort of way to become encapsulated groups or quasi organizations
within formal organizations. This argument is developed in the body o
f the paper through a consideration of the contemporary situation of p
rofessionals in manufacturing industry and the public services, where
new model professions have established themselves firmly in the presen
t century, and where there are some very similar informal structures.
The influence of current social and economic change on these forms of
professional organization is then discussed, and it is argued that alt
hough they are clearly embattled in some of the areas of their traditi
onal strength, because of their developed organizational attributes, p
rofessional groups are likely to persist. Contemporary management of p
rofessional services is not without difficulty in these circumstances;
and, in areas where professions are well-established, re-organization
is taking place round encapsulated professional groups rather than by
re-constructing them. Despite some superficial similarities, therefor
e, the management of services is different between traditional profess
ional services and newer commercial ones. Moreover, if the account of
professional self-organization developed here is a reliable guide, in
the longer term we may expect it to extend to new services, despite cu
rrent differences in their organization and forms of managerial contro
l.