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From New Public Management to New Public Governance (and Beyond)? Changing Professional Roles and Practices in a Context of Public Sector Reform
Abstract Submissions Closed
RC52 Sociology of Professional Groups (host committee)
Language: English
Session Type: Oral
Many scholars studying professional work underscore pressures on professionals when they perform daily work. Professionals face more complex problems, new technologies and more heterogeneity among clients. As many professionals are employed in a public sector context, public management reforms affect conditions for professional work.
Based on the New Public Management paradigm since the 1980s, professionals are urged to be more efficient and cost effective. More recently, reforms based on New Public Governance urge professionals to collaborate, both within and across professional fields and with clients. The multiple reform demands transcend traditional professional and service boundaries and raise important questions. How is professional work reconfigured in the context of reform and changing public management?
The need for more efficiency and cost-effectiveness, a stronger client-focus and integrated services has been widely acknowledged in the academic literature. Yet, studies also show that organizing change and developing co-creation and co-production remains a huge challenge. One reason is that professionals are socialized within professional segments, each having their own culture, language and routines. How do new professional roles emerge, and what is the impact of reforms on professional practices, autonomy and responsibility?
This regular session invites contributions that focus on these developments and their implications for academic insights as well as practices. How do reforms like New Public Management and New Public Governance affect professional work? What are main challenges and how can professionals engage in the co-production of professional services? We invite theoretical and empirical contributions both within and across professional fields.