ABSTRACT
Professionalism is a cornerstone in modern society. Increasingly, our private and public lives are shaped, regulated, and transformed by decisions made by the professionals who administer the institutions of society, whether in the health care sector, education, law and law enforcement, the transport sector, the financial sector, entertainment, etc. We consult physicians when we get ill, psychologists when we have emotional problems, lawyers when we have legal disputes, architects when we want to build a new house, engineers to construct infrastructure, teachers to educate our children, etc. Professional expertise and knowledge are used in all domains of life to sustain welfare, security, and prosperity, and modern science and technology have become the main sources for supplying professional knowledge and expertise. We trust that professional knowledge and practice is generated by scientific standards, and we trust that professionals have state-of-the-art knowledge about phenomena within their domain and will make use of this knowledge to help their clients. There is, however, no consensus on how to define professionals and professionalism, as these concepts are highly dependent on historical and national contexts (Alvesson 2004). As Andrew Abbott (1991, 18) notes, the term “professionalism” is much more honorific than technical, and it is often used to include favored occupational groups and exclude others. Nevertheless, most sociologists tend to agree that professionals can tentatively be characterized as practitioners who work in knowledge-based service occupations and that the inclusion of practitioners in these occupations is based on tertiary education and often followed by periods of practical training. Furthermore, professionalism is often regulated by agreed standards of ethical behavior that allow professional autonomy vis-à-vis state regulations (Freidson 2001).
