Professions, Paradoxes and Management

Reform of the public sector has been on the agenda in Denmark, as in many other western countries, during the last two or three decades. New Public Management (NPM) has had major implications for professions and the managers who are handling the changes and creating new organizations - “the front line providers and supporters of public services”, as they are described by Farrel and Morris (2003: 136). An overlooked aspect in the literature on professions is a focus on their processes in managing and impacting the changes when they are translated into practice (Sehested 1996; 2002, Ferlie et al. 2000, Farrel and Morris, 2003, Juel Jacobsen 2009). With an ethnographic approach and a concept of paradox as a lens to explore on-going processes, this paper investigates the interaction between management of professions in a Danish upper secondary high school. The purpose of the paper is to add to our understanding of management of professions. The following research questions frame the investigation: How do the professions manage their project when they are to create organizational processes of change that involve new understandings of their work, and what are the organizational implications? How do managers and professions respond to competing tensions? And what management characteristics are effective in attending to contradictory demands? The results of the empirical research seem to challenge basic assumptions generated by the classical professions` theory of autonomous and self-reliant professions (Larson 1977, Abbott 1988, Freidson 1986). These assumptions are repeated in newer organizational theory concerning professions (Ferlie et al 1996, Sehested 2002, Sognstrup 2003, Kragh Jespersen 2005) The empirical research of this paper, however, illustrates that the professions.

近二三十年来，与诸多其他西方国家一样，丹麦公共部门改革始终被纳入议事日程。新公共管理（New Public Management, NPM）对一众专业人士以及负责推动变革、搭建新型组织的管理者产生了深远影响——正如法雷尔与莫里斯（Farrel and Morris, 2003: 136）所言，他们便是“公共服务一线供给者与支持者”。现有关于专业人士的研究文献中，有一个视角长期被忽视：即当变革落地实践时，专业人士自身管理与影响变革的过程（Sehested 1996; 2002, Ferlie et al. 2000, Farrel and Morris, 2003, Juel Jacobsen 2009）。本文采用民族志研究方法，并以悖论作为分析透镜，对丹麦一所普通高中内的专业人士管理互动展开探究，其研究目的在于深化我们对专业人士管理的认知。本研究围绕以下三个研究问题展开：其一，当专业人士需要构建涵盖工作认知革新的组织变革流程时，他们将如何管理自身项目？由此带来的组织层面影响是什么？其二，管理者与专业人士将如何应对彼此冲突的张力？其三，在应对多重矛盾需求时，哪些管理特质能够发挥实效？本实证研究的结论似乎对经典专业人士自治理论提出了挑战，该理论认为专业人士具备自主性与独立性（Larson 1977, Abbott 1988, Freidson 1986）。而在后续的专业人士组织理论中，这一假设被反复沿用（Ferlie et al 1996, Sehested 2002, Sognstrup 2003, Kragh Jespersen 2005）。然而，本文的实证研究结果表明，专业人士。