Abstract
By way of review and response to the Building Research & Information special issue entitled ‘New Professionalism’ (2013, volume 40, number 1), compiled by Bordass and Leaman, this paper assesses the potential and prospects for changes to the ‘system of professions’ in construction associated with a shift towards sustainability. The paper builds on and develops the analysis of professionals and professionalization in the special issue, forming a bridge with other contemporary work in organization studies and the sociology of the professions. The creation of a ‘new professionalism’ that transcends existing divisions amongst building professions will present a number of challenges. Amongst these are, on the one hand, the interweaving of processes of professionalization and institutionalization and, on the other hand, the influence of practice. Suggestions are provided on how the themes and issues raised in the special issue can be taken forward in both research and practice.
A titre de critique du numéro spécial de Building Research & Information intitulé « Le Nouveau Professionnalisme » (2013, volume 40, numéro 1), compilé par Bordass et Leaman, et de réponse à celui-ci, le présent article évalue les possibilités et les perspectives d'apporter des changements au « système des professions » du bâtiment en lien avec une évolution dans le sens du développement durable. Cet article s'appuie sur l'analyse des professionnels et de la professionnalisation effectuée dans le numéro spécial, et la développe, établissant une passerelle avec les autres travaux contemporains en matière d'études des organisations et de sociologie des professions. La création d'un « nouveau professionnalisme » transcendant les divisions existantes au sein des professions du bâtiment posera un certain nombre de difficultés. Parmi celles-ci, d'une part, l'entrelacement des processus de professionnalisation et d'institutionnalisation et, d'autre part, l'influence de la pratique. Des suggestions sont fournies quant à la façon dont il est possible de faire progresser, à la fois en termes de recherches et de pratique, les thèmes et les problèmes soulevés dans le numéro spécial.
In introducing the idea of a ‘new professionalism’ in building, the Building Research & Information special issue compiled and guest edited by Bill Bordass and Adrian Leaman () sets out its agenda in the form of two important questions, namely:
What roles can or should built environment professionals and professionalism play in producing better outcomes for the common good (particularly with regard to sustainability)?
What changes might be needed to their practices, institutions, education and knowledge?
Table 1 Authors and titles of articles in the special issue “New Professionalism', Building Research & Information (2013), 41 (1): guest editors: Bill Bordass and Adrian Leaman
There is an importance and timeliness in questioning the ability (and willingness?) of the building professions to unite, combine or change to provide the leadership necessary to effect change within the industry and how this relates to the current professional landscape. The obvious reason for this is articulated well by the guest editors and restated by virtually all the contributors. The reason relates to the need for the building sector as a whole to confront the challenges posed by the long-term needs of the built environment to make sustainability a much more central goal. The arguments for this are well rehearsed and hard to deny or challenge – particularly in the current economic, social and political context.
However, there is another reason why those questions are timely and important. They reflect a timeless (but, as will be seen, increasingly topical) concern with trying to understand (1) the nature of professions and processes of professionalization; and (2) how the landscape of professional work may be changing or be changed to shape professional practices and institutions. If the first reason is more concerned with developing appropriate interventions (including policy), then the second is more concerned with understanding the constraints posed by practice. The two are clearly interlinked: there is a need to understand how professionals and professional institutions work in order to get a good feel for how successful any policy initiatives and the changes they presuppose are likely to be.
It is with this second concern and the implications for whether a new professionalism is ‘remedy or fantasy’ (in the words of Bordass and Leaman) that this paper is primarily concerned. To explore this theme, the paper follows the lead of many of the contributors in drawing upon work in organization studies on professionals and professionalization. The aim is to complement and develop the analysis of institutional and practical constraints and, in the process, suggest additional avenues for exploring (in research and in practice) the opportunities and challenges facing putative attempts to move towards a ‘new professionalism’ based on an ethics of sustainability.
Changing the system of building professions?
Established perspectives on the professions have moved well beyond early concerns with identifying the key characteristics of a profession and, following the seminal work of Abbott (Citation1988), place much more emphasis on understanding processes of professionalization associated with jurisdictional claims over established and emergent bodies of knowledge amongst competing professional and occupational groups. Abbott's work provides a framework for understanding the disturbances to the system of building professions resulting both from exogenous changes (especially market, regulatory, technological and organizational changes), as well as from more emergent internal changes from within the profession (e.g. development of new forms of knowledge or skills or different ways of organizing professional services). As such, it also provides a useful way of identifying the major threats and opportunities affecting actors occupying the professional terrain populated by building professionals.
Not surprisingly, Abbott's work on the system of the professions serves as an explicit point of reference for many of the contributions to the special issue. For some, it provides a way of understanding the set of (mainly exogenous) forces acting upon the activities and knowledge base of building professions that have served to erode the status and influence of particular professional groups and which continue to inhibit the development of collective action around the development of a ‘new professionalism’ centred upon sustainable development (Bordass and Leaman, Connaughton and Meikle, Duffy and Rabeneck). For others, it offers a way of highlighting and understanding more endogenous influences on the knowledge base and skills of professionals ‘on the ground’ and the ongoing effects this may be having on shaping professional activities, roles and identities (Janda and Parag; Jaradat, Whyte and Luck).
Where analysis based on Abbott's work is made explicit, the result is often a concern with changes to the organization and delivery of professional services (e.g. Connaughton and Meikle; Twinn) and the commodification of professionals' knowledge that have weakened once dominant professions (e.g. Duffy and Rabeneck). However, across the collection as a whole there is a tendency to ignore or downplay a key dynamic in Abbott's approach – namely, the notion of jurisdictional contestation and negotiation – that is central to his more fluid view of professionalization, but which is crucial when it comes to understanding the factors enabling and inhibiting recommendations for achieving collaboration to effect systematic institutional change towards a ‘new professionalism’.
Hill, Lorenz, Dent and Lützkendorf, for example, argue that there is a clear need for professional bodies to work together collaboratively in the interests of sustainability. Their arguments draw upon the moral code that lies at the heart of the established building professions, but their analysis questions the ability of professional institutions separately to provide the drive and leadership needed to respond ethically and in line with ecological and sustainability needs (many other contributions take a similar position). The answer provided by Hill et al. is therefore the development of a new sense of professional ethics based on guiding principles of sustainability.
The question, however, is how does one then transcend the differences between professional groups that are expected somehow to collaborate, bridging inevitable gaps in the perspectives of the quite distinct professional communities of practice that they represent and reflect (Boland & Tenkasi, Citation1995)? As Hughes and Hughes point out, the issue of sustainability does not neatly fall into professional jurisdictional domains and requires a wider range of collaborative involvement across the building professions. However, there are many competitive, collaborative and participative challenges that serve to inhibit any such collective orientation and action. These differences are also clear to see in Hill et al.'s own very informative overview of the approaches of professional bodies in the UK context. In other words, while pluralistic thinking is clearly necessary, is it sufficient in overcoming the deep structural/cultural divisions amongst the building professions and the institutes that represent them?
The same question could be applied to other contributions that identify particular mechanisms that could be harnessed to create a greater shared sense of identity and purpose. Hartenberger, Lorenz and Lützkendorf, for example, explore how sustainable development may be built more effectively through professional training in order to develop a more ‘shared built environment professional identity’ based upon a shared sense of purpose. A similar approach is taken by Duffy and Rabeneck who argue for the need to encourage more training and professional development based on multidisciplinary thinking and learning (drawing upon case based methods).
Hartenberger et al.'s contribution clearly outlines existing barriers to greater cohesion arising from the compartmentalization of professional education and training. However, their approach poses a number of challenges to the development of new curricula and methods in ways that not only serve to create a shared sense of professional identity, but which also meet the needs of the multitude of stakeholders currently concerned with professional education and training in the built environment. These include not only those directly involved (i.e. professional accreditation bodies) but also extend to those more indirectly involved, whose needs are represented (or otherwise mediated) through professional bodies (i.e. clients and professional services firms).
At the same time, however, the fluidity of professionalization that is captured in Abbott's work also provides a set of clues as to what strategies may be available to the various groups in promoting newer forms of knowledge around which can be established firm jurisdictional claims. For a fuller understanding to occur, though, requires a deeper understanding of the relationship between professionalization as a process and its institutionalization in professional work, education and training.
A neo-institutional perspective?
Examining the relationship between professionalization and institutionalization processes in building is timely, as it corresponds to attempts in the field of management and organizational studies to revitalize examination of relationships between the two. Recent attempts to further the understanding of professionals and professionalization have attempted to look beyond established perspectives on the sociology of the professions and take much greater account of the complex institutional and organizational terrain within which established and emergent professional groups act and interact.
Resonating with many of the themes addressed in this special issue, increasing attention has been directed towards understanding the interplay between professionalization and institutionalization processes (Muzio, Brock, & Suddaby, Citation2013; Suddaby & Viale, Citation2011). Such an approach emphasizes the role of professionals as institutional agents and builds upon the idea that professions are not simply constrained by the institutional context in which they act (e.g. the power of markets or of the state), but instead have creative agency in being able to shape and change institutional domains through the cultural–cognitive, normative and/or regulatory elements they bring to the table (Scott, Citation2008). It also puts the organizational context within and through which professionals act at the heart of the debate about professional and institutional change (Muzio & Kirkpatrick, Citation2011).
Many of the recommendations for change in the special issue collection do consider the importance of wider institutional actions and initiatives which seek to break down or circumvent the barriers created by differentiation and division amongst professional groups (Hill et al., Janda and Parag, Hartenberger et al., Bonham, Duffy and Rabeneck, Twinn). As such, they directly confront the structural/cultural constraints and propose concrete adjustments that may be needed to help ‘engineer’ change. Bordass and Leaman take the lead by promoting the importance of agencies independent of existing professional institutions that are able to focus on providing the support necessary to produce a coordinated response across the building professions to new performance challenges. Other contributions focus more on the ‘demand side’ (i.e. clients, occupants and their representative organizations) and emphasize the harnessing of specific sources of influence. Bonham suggests drawing upon the power of government as an influential client and points to examples of good practice from government led projects in the US. Attention is also drawn by Bonham to the importance of the numerous existing international institutions that can help provide important sources of legitimation for such changes to practice.
Other contributions are perhaps less sanguine or instead arguably less realistic about the prospects for change. Hughes and Hughes tend to emphasize institutional inertia. They suggest that emergent professionalization in developing countries may act as a force for change, but imply that the direction of professionalization is more likely than not to reinforce the status quo (a concern also expressed by Twinn with reference to experience in China). If this is the case, then it suggests that efforts to drive through change are likely to encounter significant and perhaps overwhelming obstacles. Interestingly, both they and Bonham draw more inspiration from non-UK examples and experiences (as do Hartenberger et al., who model their approach on the US, the Netherlands and Denmark). This suggests two things: first, that the precise constellation of national and sector conditions is likely to vary enormously and so can provide alternative, more positive examples of receptivity to change; but, second, that such variation in institutional context is also likely to create enormous barriers to the transfer of best practice from one institutional context to another (Whitley, Citation1999). In the UK, for example, the conclusions of Hughes and Hughes about the continued relevance and resilience of the professions do underscore many of the points made above about the continued importance of those institutional bodies and also signify how they continue to provide vital sources of legitimation and validation that will affect any attempt at change (see also Hill et al.).
Twinn's suggestion that the building professions should act as a united voice and harness the media to communicate messages about sustainability in a much more unified and effective way through the media points to the importance and power of rhetorical strategies in harnessing support, overcoming opposition and legitimizing alternative practices. However, it also leaves open many questions about how such a unified voice might be created and mobilized. So too does Aho's appeal for greater skilled performance and ethical action on the part of professionals. The more radical suggestion of the need for a fundamental transformation of business models and bidding practices in the industry raises similar questions about the scope and feasibility of change, as well as possible unintended consequences.
Connaughton and Meikle's analysis of construction professional services firms in the UK also presents a less optimistic view, insofar as it suggests that the direction of organizational change continues to promote organizational control of professional activity with all the consequences that may bring for commodification and standardization of knowledge. However, it also does two other important things. First, it again points to the organization of professional services in practice as a crucial influence on the extent to which attempted institutional changes are likely to be legitimated and assume an accepted ‘taken for grantedness’ (Colyvas & Powell, Citation2006). In other words, professional service firms may be (even more) powerful players in determining the nature, shape and direction of professional training and development (away from or towards a ‘new professionalism’?). Second, it creates potential opportunities for a ‘new professionalism’ to be forged from the interactions and negotiated relationships that bring together multidisciplinary teams at the level of the firm and of the project in practice.
Does practice make perfect?
This last observation points to an alternative, more practice-based perspective that brings centre stage the shifting balance of forces affecting the organizational and technological terrain occupied by building professionals and how that affects or may affect emergent practices. Among the contributions, Janda and Parag touch on this theme by eschewing top-down change and suggesting that a ‘middle-out’ approach is the best way of capturing the more profound direct influence that building professionals can have as ‘enablers’, ‘mediators’ and ‘aggregators’. Drawing upon Abbott (Citation1988), they examine the imperatives of practice and the situated nature of knowledge that derives from activity in project settings, exploring how this may provide a basis for different modes of influence available to building professionals. Jaradat et al. similarly emphasize the fluidity of practice and the constantly changing and renegotiating of relationships amongst and between professional and occupational role-holders. They emphasize as well the important mediating effects of information technology and explore the challenges this ongoing fluidity brings to existing professional group boundaries and associated professional identities.
While both contributions stress issues of practice and how this links with professional identity, they are perhaps less clear on likely or possible institutional trajectories or what these changes mean for attempts by professional groups and institutions at a wider level to challenge and shape the institutional context in ways that enable the pursuit of sustainability agendas and the like. So, the question of how knowledge and skills related to sustainability (or any other realm of knowledge and action) that is developed ‘on the ground’ through transformations in joint practice (Carlile, Citation2004) becomes institutionalized in wider professional bodies of knowledge is left largely unanswered.
In other words, if the shape of ‘new professionalism’ is related to a continually changing (and perhaps contested) ‘micro-relationships’ amongst old and newly emerging and competing groups, what does this mean for the ‘institutional work’ (Suddaby & Viale, Citation2011) necessary to actively pursue changes in professional orientation? If information technology-mediated interaction is a force for helping to dissolve established rigid professional and institutional barriers and constraints, then what institution-building strategies are required to convert this into domains of knowledge and practice that have a wider currency and legitimacy within the institutional field? And how will this enable existing or newly emerging professional/occupational domains not only to establish clear jurisdictional claims, but also to align or negotiate those claims with the plurality of interests that would make sustainable development a realistic new collaborative professionalization project (Larson, Citation1977)?
A further set of questions concerns the complex relationship between institutional, organizational and individual levels of analysis in the infusion of new sets of values and practices. Hill et al., for instance, emphasize the responsibilities not only of institutional bodies but also of individuals in developing a new professionalism centred upon a new code of ethics. A similar emphasis on individual professionalism and agency can be found in many other pieces in the collection and this fits well with the emphasis on distributed practice. However, it also raises the question of how the resultant, more loosely defined communities of practice connect with wider institutional initiatives.
Work on the development of communities of practice – of which professions are a more institutionalized example – emphasizes not only the challenges of inter-community collaboration, but also the within-community and inter-generational conflicts that can be engines for change in perspectives within particular professional fields of activity (Lave & Wenger, Citation1991). In design disciplines, this is evident in changing views on many matters, including changes over time in design fashions and in the changing relative emphasis on, say, functionality and aesthetics. In other words, conflict and contestation are not only natural features of professional communities of practice, but are also symptomatic of the very flexible, fluid and contested nature of knowledge and skills within a particular discipline. What does this mean then for the prospects of being able to marry changes in practice with corresponding change initiatives at an institutional level? And what are the implications for attempts to instil very unitary notions of accepted practice (and ways of achieving that goal) at an institutional level across quite distinct realms of knowledge and practice that may additionally need to allow for and encourage diverse and innovative ways of working?
Such questions emphasize long-standing difficulties in reconciling the institutional and practice-based perspectives. The value of a more practice-based approach is in emphasizing emergent processes of professionalization at the level of (project-based) practice and in linking that with the development of distinct professional identities. Though extremely valuable, this comes at the expense of downplaying the structuration processes associated with institutionalization (Giddens, Citation1984) that are necessary to help capture and transmit such knowledge through institutional forms (let alone produce the perspective taking required through cross-cutting networks of inter-professional interaction).
This raises an interesting set of specific questions and challenges confronting professionals and wider civil society. How can this practice-based capability be harnessed? And how is knowledge going to be generalized and shared in such a way that it forms the basis for a shared agenda for change across professional domains of practice? Moreover, how does it become transmitted and accepted by existing institutions that might have powerful reasons for promoting stability and resisting change and powerful institutional resources (material and symbolic) at their disposal to achieve that? And how does it then remain flexible and fluid enough to allow for the generation of new ways of working that might be conducive to changing economic, organizational and technological conditions in the future?
Charting a way forward
While there have undoubtedly been enormous changes over the last 20–30 years in the economic, contractual, organizational and technological conditions in which the building professions have collectively worked and which continue to shape developments, two aspects really stand out from this collection of papers. The first is the extent to which many of those changes have combined to make it more, rather than less, difficult for the professions as a whole to invoke the cause of sustainability. The second is the remarkable degree of continuity in conditions on the ‘supply side’ of the industry, at least insofar as the building professions are concerned.
The challenges to the professional status and influence of particular (design) professionals and the prospects for emerging professional groups this gives rise to has been remarked upon for some considerable time (Bresnen, Citation1996). Many of the contributions in this special issue continue to point to the differentiation and division of labour amongst the building professions as a major constraint upon the harnessing of collective action geared towards changing the emphasis on short term performance within the industry.
This review has generated a number of questions that are prompted by the publication of the collection of papers in this special issue. These questions arise from the relative agreement found across the contributions on two central issues. First, the recognition of a need for a new professionalism that is based upon principles of sustainability and somehow forged through collaborative action amongst construction professionals. Second, that the existing market and institutional structures for building work and professional services provision do not necessarily lend themselves to producing desired (environmental, societal, etc.) outcomes which balance the joint imperatives of short- and long-term needs.
Although the emphasis here has tended to focus on the challenges faced, the exploration of alternative perspectives should prompt a number of considerations that hopefully provide more guidance on the way forward in developing new forms of professionalism within the sector. As well as highlighting the obvious need to find ways of overcoming difference and divergence in perspectives and interests, the focus on institutionalization as an ongoing process has highlighted the importance of (collective) legitimization as a force for embedding new practices and the need to find ways of capturing, generalizing and codifying knowledge and learning that resides at the level of practice.
Many of the practical suggestions made by the contributors to this special suggest particular ways in which this institutionalization may be promoted. The important point though, if one takes into account the complexity of professionalization as a process, is that there is no one obvious fix to the problem (creating new agencies, promoting an ethical basis for professional actions, harnessing powerful clients, education and training or media communication). Particular initiatives may each provide an important impetus or catalyst for change. However, they may also have unintended consequences that could even reinforce existing divisions if, for example, they are not vested with the legitimacy they need to lead change or if they create new arenas for conflict or competition amongst professional groups. Consequently, institutionalizing a new mode of professionalism is likely to involve action on many, if not all, of those fronts (plus many more perhaps). That is, if ‘new professionalism’ is to represent a serious attempt to legitimate a new form of practice and institutionalized professionalism then it must be distilled from, and instilled in, the ongoing practices of industry professionals, as well as shared across distinctive professional communities of practice.
The ‘institutional work’ involved (Suddaby & Viale, Citation2011) is of course considerable. However, this review has suggested a number of ways perhaps in which knowledge may be mobilized from a number of adjacent sources in the field of organization studies to help with understanding the challenges and issues in furthering that process. An important start has also been made in the ‘institutional work’ associated with the very task of putting together and publishing the collection of papers represented in this important special issue.
References
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