Organization contra organizations: Professions and organizational change in the United Kingdom

Professions in the United Kingdom have been periodically marginalized and The Management their growth suspended, but they have shown considerable capacity to adapt. The evolution of 'new model' professions at the 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 occupational organization for professional groups. This organization combines control of the labour market with informal cooperation and control within employing organizations, and is identified as a form of occupational '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 of the paper through a consideration of the contemporary situation of professionals in manufacturing industry and the public services, where new model professions have established themselves firmly in the present 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 although they are clearly embattled in some of the areas of their traditional strength, because of their developed organizational attributes, professional groups are likely to persist. Contemporary management of professional 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, therefore, the management of services is different between traditional professional 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 current differences in their organization and forms of managerial control.