Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Profession Change'

The publications in this portfolio are focused on issues related to educational innovations and in particular, how improved practice can be encouraged, planned and implemented. It highlights how activist professionals can play key roles in mobilising teachers, academics, communities and education authorities and so engage in the politics of transformation that invokes wider issues of equity and social justice. As members of communities of practice that value respect, reciprocity and collaboration, activist professionals forge an identity that is strategic and tactical and works strongly in the interests of students and the communities in which schools are located. In identifying and promoting better practice, activist professionals are critical of existing structures and in shaping and embracing the challenges that present themselves, they frame the future agendas of schooling and education. This research as an activist professional in both diverse and intersecting communities of practice, has led to the development of a range of benchmarking methodologies as a way of identifying and fostering better professional practice. These methodologies and their associated better practice have the common purpose of reviewing and revitalising teacher professionalism. The research undertaken, its methodologies, findings and application have been intended to contribute to profession-led change
Doctor of Education (Ed. D.)

Dental caries is a disease process, one that will not be eliminated by tooth repair alone. Caries is the most prevalent disease of children and the primary reason for most restorative dental visits in both adults and children. A risk-based approach to managing caries targets those in greatest jeopardy for contracting the disease and provides evidenced-based decisions to treat current disease and prevent it in the future. This dissertation focuses on an approach to diagnosing and managing caries disease that holds promise of transforming the ways dentists treat this disease. This approach focuses on assessing the risk of caries and designing an individualized treatment plan that treats the disease in the least invasive way possible known as "Caries Management by Risk Assessment" or CAMBRA. Taken in total, the chapters presented in this dissertation address the related problems of disseminating information about CAMBRA and influencing both the practice of dentistry and the education of dentists.

Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2019
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references.
The organization of professional work-that of lawyers, doctors, and accountants, among others-is undergoing change. One of the most notable changes is the disaggregation of work processes, or the unbundling of work into component tasks and their allocation to different sources of labor. The legal profession, and specifically the corporate law firms and clients that make up the profession's "core", is increasingly subject to such reorganization. An emerging hypothesis is that this unbundling and reallocation of tasks underpins new forms of stratification. This dissertation explores the extent to which tasks underpin the distribution of opportunities and rewards that come to define occupational stratification in law.
In the first essay, I show how market pressures-specifically, rooted in changing firm-client relationships, incongruities in law firm business models, and increased competition from alternative legal service providers-contributes to occupational change by transforming law firms' division of labor and its tasks. The precise implications of such transformation remain unclear, as tasks are not typically examined as a mechanism of professional stratification. The next two essays aim to bring clarity to this issue. In each, I build from an emerging model of task-based stratification found in work design and organizational scholarship. In this model, tasks are theorized to underpin stratification through their technical, social, and subjective characteristics, doing so in ways that hinge on their status.
I examine this model first using qualitative data collected in two major legal markets, showing that the disaggregation of tasks that vary by status shapes divergent opportunity structures related to skill, social resources, and signals of professional status, such professional expertise and autonomy, which reinforce existing stratification in new ways. The third essay builds on these insights, using both fieldwork and survey data to test the relationship between task status and occupational outcomes more systematically. My findings show that certain high- and low-status tasks are associated with three forms of social resources, mostly in the expected direction. Yet nuance in these relationships suggests further refinement and new conditions of the model. These findings raise implications for task-based stratification and stratification in the profession more generally.
by Christine A. Riordan.
Ph. D.
Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management

This research investigates the relevance of professional subcultures in a climate of change at a large hospital in South-Western Sydney and addresses the question : 'How do changes associated with health reform impact upon cultural interdependence between professional identities?'. As a corollary, cultural interdependence between professional identities may have profound consequences for health reform and for hospital management. By exploring the two main ideas, Professional Sub-group culture and change, this research draws from existing theory in areas such as organisational culture and cultural change, professional identities and health reform. The thesis addresses three anthropological perspectives of cultural change. It addresses the integration perspective as a homogenous unity by analysing the organisation-wide key ideas (or myths) that make action possible, often espoused by senior management. It addresses the fragmentation perspective as a gathering of transient concerns, by acknowledging the ambiguity and anxiety associated with a state of constant flux. It analyses the differentiation perspective as a collection of subcultures and its commonalities and differences. The change discussed in the thesis was not of an archetypal nature. There was no transformation of the organisational business model at government level. However, at lower levels, actors in the organisation experienced jolts through decreed change from a small district level hospital to a large tertiary level trauma centre. This research re-evaluates the theory on professional identity by establishing to what extent environmental changes and organisational changes impact upon professional identity from three cultural perspectives. This research does this by first assessing the health care organisation for existence of occupational subcultures through survey. The research continues by investigating the relationships between occupational groups through focus group discussion and in-depth interviews. Participant observation is used to illustrate and reflect commonality and diversity. This combination of methods facilitates the analysis of change and professional identity
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

With the aim to situate the study of military professionalism and its relationship to change firmly in an empirical analysis, this thesis uses the method of grounded theory to study the elements of military professional mindset that impacts on the professional capacity to understand and handle military change. Theoretically the study situates itself in both the study of military professionalism and the study of military change, and challenges previous literature by stating that there are elements of the military profession that makes it adaptable to change. The results are based on data from interviews with military officers working for the Swedish Armed Forces and the analysis is developed through a multiple-step coding procedure which thoroughly grounds the study in empirics. The study finds that military professionals have a holistic mindset when understanding their own profession in relation to the military organisation and military change. Both rigid and definitive elements, such as hierarchy and loyalty, and less rigid elements, such as flexibility, adaptability and military preparedness, impacts the capacity to handle change and are seen as important elements of the professional mindset.

I samband med revisionsskandaler i USA så infördes ett nytt kontroll organ för revisorer, Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. De har syftet att kontrollera att revisorer som arbetar med klienter som lyder under Sarbanes-Oxley Act efterföljder de nya reglerna. Den svenska revisorsprofessionen har länge varit självreglerad men på grund av PCAOB möts professionen av en tydligare reglering vilket kan resultera i problem. Därför finns det ett behov att undersöka hur svenska revisorer ser på PCAOB och hur det har påverkat revisorsprofessionen.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka svenska revisorers åsikter om PCAOB och om PCAOB har förändrat den svenska revisorsprofessionen. Uppsatsen har också syftet att förklara orsakerna bakom de svenska revisorernas åsikter och varför den svenska revisorsprofessionen påverkas.

Utifrån uppsatsen syfte valdes en kvalitativ ansats. Data har samlats in genom semistrukturerade telefonintervjuer och personlig intervju. Urvalet består av 4 stycken anonyma auktoriserade revisorer som alla har erfarenhet av Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

PCAOB har påverkat revisorsprofessionen till att bli mer professionell men samtidigt har formaliseringen ökat för professionen och bidragit till mindre tid för analytiskt arbete vilket i längden kan påverka kvaliteten på revisionen negativt och därmed kan PCAOB utgöra ett hot mot professionen.

Trots att revisorsprofessionen är och har varit starkt kopplad till självreglering så verkar regulativa förändringar från PCAOB som syftar till att stärka revisorernas förtroende vara viktigare än att vidhålla professionens självreglering

As auditing scandals occurred in the US, a new controlling institute for auditors was formed, Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. It has the purpose to monitor auditors who are working with clients that have to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The Swedish auditing profession has for long time been self-regulated, but due to PCAOB the profession faces a stricter regulation which could lead to some problems. Hence, there exists a need to investigate how Swedish auditors look upon PCAOB and how it has effected the auditing profession.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine Swedish auditor’s opinions about PCAOB and if PCAOB has affected the Swedish auditing profession. Furthermore, this thesis aims to explain the reasons behind the Swedish auditor’s beliefs and why the Swedish auditing profession is affected.

On the basis of the purpose, a qualitative research method was chosen. Data has been collected through semi-structured telephone interviews and personal interview. The selection consists of four anonymous authorized public accountants who all have experience of Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

Due to PCAOB the auditing profession has become more professionalized but at the same time an increase in formalisation has left little time for actual analytical work and the quality of the audit might in the end be lower which constitute a major threat to the auditing profession.

Although, the tradition of the auditing profession is and has been self-regulation it appears that PCAOB is welcomed by auditors since a regulative change that aim to improve auditors’ trust is more important than maintaining a self-regulated profession.

Stronger financial pressures are currently challenging previously unopposed ways of directing work within professional organizations, where strong groups characterized by power, prestige and autonomy play a major role. As a result of increased scrutiny of professions from the outside, resistance to change emerges in these settings. Earlier applied frameworks for understanding change mechanisms in a professional setting are however rather limited in their understanding of how change dynamically occurs. By designing a novel, more dynamic framework for organizational change, we aim in this thesis to develop an increased understanding for challenges to change initiatives in professional organizations. Through observational studies and open interviews at a Swedish hospital working with process development based on lean principles, we were able to identify the five discursive practices of “Shielding the Profession”, “Exempting Exceptions”, “Positioning Subjects”, “Casting the Other” and “Engaging” as being typical for professional organizations. By understanding the dynamics of discursive interplay, we could then explain how these practices contributed to three major challenges to change initiatives within professional organizations; “The challenge of novel concepts”, “The challenge of achieving managerial influence” and “The challenge of distance”. Our results should provide a foundation for further studies wanting to explore how change processes strategically can be managed, but could also be used as a tool for managers in professional organizations wanting to understand why change initiatives do not result in desired outcomes.
Dagens ekonomiska klimat sätter press på tidigare sätt att organisera arbete inom professionella organisationer, där starka grupper som karakteriseras av makt, prestige och autonomi har ett stort inflytande. Till följd av en ökad insyn i det professionella arbetet uppstår i denna kontext ett motstånd till förändring. Tidigare studier av förändring inom professionella organisationer uppvisar dock begränsningar i sitt sätt att förstå fenomenet. Genom att designa ett nytt, mer dynamiskt ramverk för undersökande av förändringsprocessen syftar vi med denna rapport till att utöka förståelsen kring utmaningar kopplade till förändringsinitiativ i professionella organisationer. Genom observationsstudier och öppna intervjuer på ett stort svenskt sjukhus där ett leaninspirerat arbetssätt håller på att implementeras identifierade vi de fem diskursiva beteendena: “Shielding the Profession”, “Exempting Exceptions”, “Positioning Subjects”, “Casting the Other” och “Engaging” som kunde anses vara typiska för professionella organisationer generellt. Genom att förstå dynamiken mellan olika diskurser kunde vi sedan förklara hur dessa fem beteenden bidrog till tre huvudsakliga utmaningar kopplade till förändringsinitiativ i professionella organisationer: “The challenge of novel concepts”, “The challenge of achieving managerial influence” och “The challenge of distance”. Våra resultat kan anses utgöra en grund för vidare studier som vill utforska hur förändringsprocesser strategiskt kan påverkas men de kan också användas som ett verktyg av ledare i professionella organisationer som upplever svårigheter att nå önskade resultat av förändringsinitiativ.

Thesis advisor: Michael G. Pratt
Despite calls to understand the micro-foundation of institutional theory and to understand how professional identity change relates to the broader macro context (e.g., Lok, 2010; Lepisto, Crosina and Pratt, forthcoming); exploration of the link between a field-level institutional change and the individual professionals' identity responses within the field remains. For this dissertation, I conducted an inductive qualitative study of French veterinarians and their reactions to "the Service Directive", a European Union regulation that re-categorizes veterinarians as "service providers" from "healthcare professionals." Drawing on interviews with practicing veterinarians, leaders of the field, observations, and archival data, my dissertation advances our understanding of professionals' responses to an institutional change which can potentially redefine what their profession is. My findings suggest that professionals negotiate an institutional change (in this case, the Service Directive) at the professional level before its formal implementation and before individual professionals within their organization engaged in any form of response. My dissertation introduces a model centered on understanding how veterinarians responded to this change at the individual level (and more particularly, in terms of identity) within their organization. This model suggests that individual professionals perceive the institutional regulatory change in hopeful, fearful or ambivalent manners. I found that these perceptions are influenced by professionals' work orientation and perceived organization's time orientation. Further, I found that these perceptions lead to different types of identity responses: identity expansion, identity maintenance, giving up a possible self, and de-emphasizing an existing identity. My research enriches emerging perspectives on identity responses to an institutional change by pointing out various identity responses and tying them to the perceptions of an institutional change. My research further suggests that such a change can be perceived as an opportunity, as a threat, or both, not solely as a threat. Furthermore, my dissertation introduces the notions of orientation (work orientation and perceived organization's time orientation) as key to the processing of an institutional trigger. Finally, it calls attention to an emotional processing of the institutional trigger
Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2014
Submitted to: Boston College. Carroll School of Management
Discipline: Management and Organization

Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur fritidspedagogernas syn på yrkesrollen har förändrats mellan 1990-2017. Tidigare forskning talar om hur fritidspedagogens yrkesroll har uppfattats som otydlig. Studien visar på förändrade förutsättningar som ett resultat av den integrering med skolan som skedde på 1990-talet. Studien bygger dels på en textanalys av styrdokument för att synliggöra förändringar i uppdraget, men även på intervjuer med nio fritidspedagoger som varit yrkesaktiva under tidsperioden som undersökningen berör. Resultatet av studien pekar på en gemensam grund i styrdokumenten som inriktar sig på värdegrundsarbete och pedagogisk omsorg. Rekommendationer i form av allmänna råd och pedagogiska program har utvecklats till ett eget kapitel i den läroplan som är aktuell idag, som också innebär en större kravbild. Förändringarna har sett olika ut mellan deltagarna, det beror på varierande förutsättningar som skola, lokal och barngrupp. Deltagarna har även påverkats olika beroende på yrkeserfarenhet, kommun och arbetsplats.   Gävle den 31/5-2018 Anders Larsson och Oliver Sjudin.

The Swedish pharmacy market has been state regulated for many years. In early 21st century, the Swedish government made a proposal to deregulate the pharmacy market in order to make a reform that would make privatization of pharmacies a possibility. The reason behind this change of the pharmacy market from state perspective was to create better service for the public. The Swedish government hoped that the change would result in increasing service selection, increased accessibility and a lower cost of non-prescription and prescription medicine. Private operators need approval from the Swedish Health Department before they can pursue their own establishment. When deregulation was finalized, many private operators opened privately owned pharmacies. The purpose of this study is to create insight on how the organizational change has evolved since the deregulation of the pharmacy market. It is also important to find out how the organizational change of the pharmacy market has affected the framework of pharmacists as an occupation. The perception of Pharmacist’ labour and changes on the profession as a whole is also studied. The study has been conducted using qualitative method to collect empirical data. Interviews have been made by conducting structured interviews with six local pharmacists. The empirical data has been analyzed by using the theory of professions. The theories of profession is used to explain pharmacists as a professions. In addition to organizational change, the study reviews pharmacist perspective, interpretation and valuation of their everyday life on the work arena. The pharmacists reveal several changes in their work life. Today they have bigger opportunities to choose employer, where before it was only one, today there are a lot of private pharmacies. That means they also can decide working hours because all the pharmacies have different working hours. Their perspectives are formulated in ways that show new routines and way of work. Due to the free market and competition between pharmacies, focus has shifted towards increased sale perspective. Pharmacist acknowledge that even though they are a profession, they feel that they have a higher workload, often less time with clients and sense of being a sales person.

Personality and assessments have important practical applications within the work domain (Salgado, 2017) making it important to examine the work-relevancy of personality descriptions. Generally-developed personality assessments have been useful for examining personality at work but modifying the assessment instructions enhances the work-contextualisation, allowing for responses that correspond more closely with work behaviours (Shaffer & Postlethwaite, 2012). The findings from cross-cultural research studies (Church, 2016) suggest that the work-relevance of personality may be further enhanced by developing assessments within specific cultures, leading to improvements in structural and criterion validity. An additional implication may be an improved ability to thoroughly evaluate personality structural consistency. Therefore, this dissertation examines the utility of adopting a cultural perspective to examine profession-based personality assessment and change within the professional group of teaching. Specifically, this dissertation summarises and examines the description of personality provided by members of the teaching profession and describes if and how members develop a culturally-relevant understanding of personality. This dissertation is comprised primarily of four studies: one critical review and three empirical studies (based on two stages of data collection). Study 1 is a critical review examining the importance of thoroughly contextualising personality assessments at work, by developing personality factors from within specific professions. This study integrates cross-cultural and personality literatures to examine why personality change may be expected during professional socialisation and whether investigations of change may be enhanced by adopting a cultural perspective. Study 1 concludes that lexically-derived personality assessments diverge from generic personality models. Emic research studies may provide an alternative approach to investigating structural consistency by allowing for examinations of how the description of personality changes. Therefore, Study 1 outlines the theoretical foundations that are subsequently empirically examined. Study 2 reports a qualitative examination of personality description and change across levels of socialisation within the teaching profession. Personality descriptors were obtained from members of the teaching profession, enabling comparisons with generic personality descriptions, and an examination of whether and how those descriptions differed with socialisation. Volunteers (n = 62) participated in group-based interviews from three groups: student teachers in their first and last years (or equivalent) of a tertiary education program and working teachers. The results identify work-specific personality descriptions that differ from broadly-developed descriptions. Group differences were identified across categories of lexically-based descriptions, varying with stage of socialisation. These findings provide initial evidence to demonstrate that entering and maintaining membership with the teaching professional culture influences how members describe personality. Study 3 identifies emergent teaching-based personality factors, enabling examinations of the associations with work-contextualised Big Five factors and scales of work behaviours, and examines whether personality factors vary across levels of socialisation. Volunteers (n = 508) participated in a self-report survey, recruited from the same three groups as Study 2. Analyses of the responses identified a six-factor personality structure, and the factors were mostly distinct from the Big Five factors. The teaching personality factors produced incremental validity when statistically predicting work behaviours. Significant differences in mean ratings and metric non-invariance indicates that personality ratings and factor loadings vary across groups. The findings show that teaching-based personality factors differ from general factors, and this culturally-relevant understanding of personality may develop with socialisation. Study 4 further investigates the influence of socialisation by examining how factor structures vary between earlier and later stages of socialisation. This study identifies and compares personality factor structures based on descriptions provided by first year teaching students and working teachers. The data reported in Study 3 are reanalysed by conducting exploratory factor analyses separately for each group, using only the descriptors provided by that group. Analyses of the descriptors provided by first year student teachers and working teachers identified personality factor structures that were mostly distinct from each other, and from work-contextualised Big Five factors. The lexically-based personality factors were associated with work behaviours, but the pattern of associations varied between groups. Study 4 demonstrates the importance of utilising an emic approach to examining personality structural consistency by showing how the description of personality differs with socialisation. By adopting a cultural perspective, this dissertation identifies personality factors that are relevant for describing personality within the teaching profession and correspond more strongly with work behaviours. By targeting participants who represent different stages of socialisation within the teaching profession, this dissertation shows how descriptions of personality change when learning what it means to be a teacher. Group-differences in factor structures were important because it provides evidence of personality structural inconsistency across levels of socialisation. Therefore, socialisation may influence personality to strengthen personal capacities to achieve the requirements of the teaching profession. Several implications resulting from the findings reported for personality and change theory, research, and practice are discussed.
Thesis (Professional Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy in Organisational Psychology (PhD OrgPsych)
School of Applied Psychology
Griffith Health
Full Text

Due to changes within the public library profession and a lack of previous research regarding its societal role, this essay explores this phenomenon. The objective of this empirical study is to explore the societal role of public library professionals in Canada through the analyzation of semi-structured interview transcripts and a guideline document for professionals. The results were analyzed and sensitized through the theoretical frameworks of Abbott’s professionalization theory (1988) and Bourdieu’s praxeology theory (1986; 1992). Through grounded theorization, the study found that the role of professionals has changed, and is changing, due to not only external but also internal factors in the form of a conflict. This conflict was conceptualized through sensitization of Bourdieu’s framework as challenging and enabling ideas of the doxa of the profession. This conceptualization was understood further through the lens of Abbott’s system of professions where claims of expertise, which is viewed as a crucial part of professionalization, was theorized as an important part of that conflict.

In a European-wide effort to improve the professional development of teachers, the 2AgePro project was conducted from November 2008 to October 2010. One of its goals was to develop and test different forms of intergenerational teacher collaboration among junior and senior teachers in primary and secondary schools. Another aim was to utilise the results from these pilots, which were conducted in the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden, to create a model for intergenerational collaboration that could be used in any national or cultural setting. This article reports on the national pilots and proposes a European model for intergenerational collaboration for teachers.
2AgePro

The purpose of this study was to investigate the implications of additive manufacturing on industrial design profession and designers through an explorative study. Through a literature survey, implications of additive manufacturing technologies on industrial designers and industrial design profession were explored. Expanding literature survey with on-line searches, several experimental and commercial application examples of rapid manufacturing of products were identified. These identified examples were then used for a qualitative evaluation on the implications of additive manufacturing for the industrial design profession and designers through semi-structured interviews conducted with seven professional industrial designers having experience with rapid manufacturing in Istanbul Turkey. The research concluded with significant implications of additive manufacturing having the potential to cause paradigm shifts in industrial designer&rsquo
s role, definition of the profession and design process. The conclusions derived include suggestions to exploit the potential brought by these technologies and their applications.

Den svenska hälso- och sjukvården har förändrats i takt med att välfärdssamhället har byggts ut sedan andra världskriget. Trender och modeller har påverkat styrning och organisering vilket har fått konsekvenser för arbetets utformning för dem som är verksamma inom området. Denna studie har, med hälso- och sjukvårdens förändring som bakgrund, undersökt hur personalfunktionens uppdrag förändrats i organisationen Landstinget i Uppsala län under drygt trettio år. Metoden har varit empirisk studie i form av intervjuer av individer som varit verksamma inom personalfunktionen i organisationen under en lång tid. Studien har lett fram till följande slutsatser: Personalfunktionen inom Landstinget i Uppsala län har under drygt trettio år gått från att vara administrativ till att vara en typ av expertfunktion. Expertrollen rymmer dels det strategiska uppdraget i organisationen, dels det konsultativa stödet till verksamheten genom dess chefer. I viss mån har det fört personalfunktionen från det operativa perspektivet till det strategiska. Denna utveckling har varit positiv för personalfunktionen i det att den har bidragit till en tydligare definition av professionen.
Since the Second World War the Swedish healthcare has changed considerably, along with the development of the welfare state. Different trends and models have influenced the way the healthcare system has been managed and organized. This has naturally had consequences for those working in the health sector. The objective of this study is, in the light of these changes, to investigate how the mission of the personnel function has changed within the organization Landstinget i Uppsala län (Uppsala County Council) during the past thirty years. The method is an empirical study based on interviews with individuals whom have been part of the personnel function in the County Council for a long time. These are the main conclusions of the study: The personnel function has developed from an administrative to an expert function. The expert function includes two roles, as carrying the strategic mission, and as consultative support through managers in the organization. This has to some extent brought the personnel function from an operative perspective to a strategic one. This has been a positive development for the personnel function, as it has contributed to a more distinct definition of their profession.

Det är inte mycket i vår vardag som undkommit att påverkas av digitaliseringens framfart. Mycket handel sker idag över internet och våra bankärenden görs idag allt mer frekvent genom mobiltelefonen. Utvecklingen pekar mot att konsumenter av olika produkter och tjänster blir allt mer digitala i sin relation med olika organisationer. När konsumenternas beteenden ändras påverkas även företagen som tillhandahåller de olika produkterna och tjänsterna.Denna trend har kunnat uppmärksammas i redovisningsbranschen. Allt fler digitala tjänster har på senare tid dykt upp på den svenska marknaden i form av bokföringsappar och förenklade program som ska underlätta för företagare att själva sköta sin bokföring. Den här studien syftar därför till att studera fenomenet. Studien uppmärksammar hur olika aktörer i branschen ställer sig till förändringarna genom att belysa vilken strategi och eventuella förändringsprocesser de har gentemot digitaliseringens möjligheter och utmaningar. Redovisningsbranschen tillhör en gren inom affärsprofessionalismen som är en svag form av profession. Därför har forskning kring både maskinbyråkratier och professioner varit av relevans för utformandet av studiens referensram där vi tar upp olika sätt digitaliseringen påverkat dessa typer av organisationer.Studien syftar till att belysa hur redovisningsbranschen reagerar på och väljer att bemöta digitaliseringens utmaningar och hur strategierna skiljer sig åt beroende på hur de ställer sig till utvecklingen. Vi har valt en kvalitativ metod till studien och har genomfört semistrukturerade intervjuer med sju stycken auktoriserade redovisningskonsulter på olika redovisningsbyråer i Västra Götaland. Resultatet av vår studie visar att strategierna för att bemöta digitaliseringen skiljer sig åt mellan byråer och vi har kunnat urskilja tre dominerande strategier som vi redogör för i vår analys. Vi har i studien även kunnat observera att vissa delar hos redovisningsbyråerna skiftar från att vara professionellt strukturerade till att anamma egenskaper från maskinbyråkratin vid förändringsprocesser gentemot digitaliseringen.
It is not much in our everyday lives that escapes to be influenced by the progress of digitization. Much trade is today done over the internet, and our banking errands are being made more frequently through smartphones. The trend indicates that consumers of different products and services are becoming increasingly digital in their relationship with different organizations. But a change in consumer behavior also affects companies that provide the different products and services.This trend has been observed in the accounting profession. Many digital services have recently appeared in the Swedish market in form of apps and simplified programs that will make it easier for business owners to manage their bookkeeping themselves. This study therefore aims to study that phenomenon. The study draws attention to how different actors in the profession adapt to the changes by highlighting the strategy and possible change processes they proceed to face the potentials and challenges of digitization. The accounting profession belongs to a branch of business professionalism, which is a weak form of profession. Therefore, research on both machine bureaucracies and professions has been relevant to the design of the study's reference framework, where we address the different ways digitization influences these types of organizations.The propose of the study is to highlight in which ways the accounting profession reacts and chooses to respond to the challenges of digitization and how the strategies differ depending on their attitude towards the development. We have chosen a qualitative method to our study and have conducted semi-structured interviews with seven certified accounting consultants at various accounting agencies in Västra Götaland, Sweden. The result of our study shows that the strategies for managing the digitization differ between agencies and we have been able to distinguish three dominant strategies that we describe in our analysis. We have also observed that certain parts of the accounting agencies shift from being professionally structured to acquire some characteristics from machine bureaucracies in the change processeses towards the digitization.This study will hereafter be in Swedish.

Ce projet de thèse se situe à l’intersection de la sociologie des professions et des sciences de l’éducation : comment rendre compte que certaines professions se féminisent alors que d’autres non, ou moins rapidement ? Que révèle ce phénomène sur l’action des normes de genre et sur leurs transformations ? Comment analyser les différences de vitesses de cette féminisation que nous appellerons « hétérochronie de genre » ? A quelles « médiations éducatives » ce phénomène d’hétérochronie est-il lié ? L’entrée des différentes vitesses de féminisation des professions n'est pas abordée par la littérature en sociologie des professions pour comprendre les dynamiques d’égalisation entre les hommes et les femmes dans notre société. L’enjeu de ce travail sera de pallier ce point aveugle par la mise à jour de ces dynamiques qui ont participé de l’évolution du genre du travail : il s’agira de réinterroger la distribution du travail professionnel et domestique entre les hommes et les femmes avec un regard nouveau. Ce projet de thèse s’inscrit également en sciences de l’éducation. C’est à partir de la réactualisation d'une logique de style d'éducation familiale et de l’élaboration d’une typologie de l’orientation professionnelle ; que nous pourrons reconstruire les espaces de construction des dispositions, ou médiations éducatives, qui rendent possible la création des hétérochronies de genre dans les champs professionnels
This thesis project is located at the intersection of the sociology of professions and educational sciences: how to report that some professions feminize while others do not, or less rapidly? What does this phenomenon reveal about the action of gender norms and their transformations? How to analyze the differences in speeds of this feminization that we will call “gender heterochrony”? To which “educational mediations” is this phenomenon of heterochrony linked?The entry of the different speeds of feminization of the professions is not addressed by research in the sociology of professions to understand the dynamics of equalization between men and women in our society. The challenge of this work will be so blind at this point by the updating of these dynamics that have contributed to the evolution of the gender of work: it will be a question of re-examining the distribution of professional and domestic work between men and women with a new look. This thesis project is also part of the educational sciences. It is based on the updating of logic of family education style and the development of a typology of vocational guidance; that we will be able to reconstruct the construction spaces of dispositions, or educational mediations, which make possible the creation of gender heterochrony in the professional fields

This research investigates the relevance of professional subcultures in a climate of change at a large hospital in South-Western Sydney and addresses the question : 'How do changes associated with health reform impact upon cultural interdependence between professional identities?'. As a corollary, cultural interdependence between professional identities may have profound consequences for health reform and for hospital management. By exploring the two main ideas, Professional Sub-group culture and change, this research draws from existing theory in areas such as organisational culture and cultural change, professional identities and health reform. The thesis addresses three anthropological perspectives of cultural change. It addresses the integration perspective as a homogenous unity by analysing the organisation-wide key ideas (or myths) that make action possible, often espoused by senior management. It addresses the fragmentation perspective as a gathering of transient concerns, by acknowledging the ambiguity and anxiety associated with a state of constant flux. It analyses the differentiation perspective as a collection of subcultures and its commonalities and differences. The change discussed in the thesis was not of an archetypal nature. There was no transformation of the organisational business model at government level. However, at lower levels, actors in the organisation experienced jolts through decreed change from a small district level hospital to a large tertiary level trauma centre. This research re-evaluates the theory on professional identity by establishing to what extent environmental changes and organisational changes impact upon professional identity from three cultural perspectives. This research does this by first assessing the health care organisation for existence of occupational subcultures through survey. The research continues by investigating the relationships between occupational groups through focus group discussion and in-depth interviews. Participant observation is used to illustrate and reflect commonality and diversity. This combination of methods facilitates the analysis of change and professional identity

This dissertation focuses on the globalization of audit markets. In particular, this dissertation is studying the entry of the Big Four accounting firms into India post-economic and political reforms of the early 1990s. The dissertation is comprised of three separate, but related studies. Each study appeals to prior research in accounting and related disciplines to examine the entry of the Big Four accounting firms in India. The first study appeals to audit market and economic research on incumbent pricing to examine ways in which local accounting firms in India adapted to the competition introduced by the Big Four accounting firms. The second study is an account of the change in the organizational field of the Indian accounting profession caused by the entry of the multinational accounting firms from 1990 to 2005 from a social constructionist perspective using the model of nonisomorphic change. The third study examines the change in the Indian accounting profession from 1990 to 2005 caused by the entry of the Big Four accounting firms in India from a critical perspective. It appeals to the theories of globalization to examine the change. Taken together, these studies attempt to provide the Big Four accounting firms useful information about the pricing strategies likely to be faced by them from local accounting firms in a new market, provide insights into the multiple roles played by professional associations in the process of radical change in the organizational field, and emphasize that globalization of accounting markets has not been accompanied by a level playing field for the local accounting profession in the globalized markets.
Ph.D.
Kenneth G. Dixon School of Accounting
Business Administration
Business Administration PhD

Background: Chronic diseases are a global issue with high human and economic costs and consequences. Chronic disease treatment requires people to change their health related behaviours with support from health care professionals. Behaviour change science is a component of health psychology and behavioural science that can help explain and predict behaviours to guide and inform intervention design. Dietitians in primary care are well-positioned to support adults with chronic disease to change their diet through nutrition education and counselling that incorporates behaviour change science. The way in which this knowledge is applied within dietary interventions, how it can be addressed in practice and whether behaviour change science is adequately taught within dietetics education programs in Australia is unclear, warranting further investigation. The overall aim of this doctoral research program was to explore the application of behaviour change science in the dietetics profession. This exploration was achieved through the following three aims: i) to investigate how behaviour change science is used in dietetics interventions and determine its effectiveness; ii) to explore how behaviour change science can be applied on an individual level for chronic disease management; iii) to investigate and explore how behaviour change science has been taught within dietetics education programs. These three aims were addressed throughout four phases of research which aligned with the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) Model of Evidence Based Healthcare. The JBI Model contextualises five ‘inner segments’ that conceptualises evidence based health care and includes Global Health, Evidence Generation, Evidence Synthesis, Evidence Transfer, and Evidence Implementation. The methodological approach for the body of research drew on both qualitative and quantitative approaches, guided by a pragmatic paradigm with relational epistemology using sequential explanatory mixed methods. This thesis is presented in eight chapters which include a mixture of research chapters and publication papers. This thesis introduces the background and significance of the problem (Chapter 1), reviews the relevant literature (Chapter 2), describes each phase of research with their submitted or published manuscripts (Chapter 4-7), and summarises the body of research and provides recommendations for future work (Chapter 8). Phase One, Study 1, a systematic review, was conducted to explore theory-based dietary interventions delivered by dietitians in primary care settings. This systematic review aligned with the Evidence Synthesis segment of the JBI Model. Thirty papers representing 19 randomised controlled trials and 5172 adults were synthesised. Thirteen studies showed significant intervention effects for the study’s primary outcome, which related to a range of health conditions. Of those studies, 11 were underpinned by the social cognitive theory, a well-known behaviour change theory commonly used in group education settings. There was fair grade evidence to support behaviour change theory, particularly social cognitive theory, to underpin the design of interventions delivered in the primary care setting. The behaviour change techniques explicitly reported by the studies were analysed, with a range of types and numbers used. These findings demonstrated that the reporting of behaviour change techniques could be enhanced for intervention replicability. Furthermore, only a few theories were used to underpin dietitian-delivered dietary interventions within primary care settings. The findings presented an opportunity to explore how other behaviour change theories could be used to understand dietary change on an individual level in the primary care setting outside of clinical intervention settings. Phase Two, Study 2, a qualitative study of adults with Type 2 Diabetes (T2D), was conducted to explore the psychological processes of dietary behaviour change after a chronic disease diagnosis. This study aligned with the Evidence Generation segment of the JBI Model. Twenty-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with adults in Australia who had consulted with a dietitian following a diagnosis of T2D. The integrated behaviour change model guided a deep exploration of the psychological processes involved in dietary behaviour change. The participants expressed a range of motivational, volitional and implicit processes that influenced their decisions to change their dietary behaviours. Motivations stemmed from the desire to improve their health, using support systems to help with life changes resulting from their diagnosis, feeling an ability and responsibility to make changes, and use their diagnosis as motivation to change. Participants expressed the importance of recognising habitual eating behaviours and unlearning them. These findings illustrate how the integrated behaviour change model can deepen our understanding of dietary behaviour change, particularly within the crucial period after a diabetes diagnosis, and can form the basis of future interventions targeting dietary behaviour change.Phase Two, Study 3, a qualitative study, further analysed the 21 transcripts using the Behaviour Change Technique Taxonomy (v1) to identify the self-reported techniques enacted by participants and the technique they perceived their dietitians to use in consultations. This study aligned with the Evidence Generation segment of the JBI Model. The participants described techniques relating to behavioural practice, suggesting almost all the participants had made changes to their dietary intake following a T2D diagnosis. As seen in Study 2, these participants expressed a range of motivations that influenced their decisions to change their dietary behaviours and volitional processes reflected in the behaviour change techniques. The participants reported that their dietitian implemented behaviour change techniques similar to nutrition education and advice. However, there appeared to be less focus on behaviour change techniques relating to self-identity and environmental restructuring. Findings from this study highlighted the multifaceted nature of dietary behaviour change and how behaviour change techniques can be used to gather how patients perceive the nutrition care delivered by dietitians. Future research is warranted to measure the effectiveness of the behaviour change techniques. Phase Three, Study 4, a document review of 18 dietetics education program curricula and 15 interviews with dietetics academics, explored how behaviour change science is taught within tertiary dietetics education programs across Australia and New Zealand. This study aligned with the Evidence Generation segment of the JBI Model. The findings illustrated the fundamental role of behaviour change science in dietetics teaching. However, the dietetics academics reported that the content-laden curricula and need to meet accreditation requirements prevented including more behaviour change science teaching and learning. Assessment types and topics taught varied between programs. These findings provided important foundational knowledge regarding behaviour change science within dietetics education programs. Key areas of improvements in university teaching and learning were identified, including having more practical simulations, scaffolding the behaviour change science content from early years, and integrating the content across courses. Conclusion: The four phases of this doctoral research program presented an in-depth understanding of how behaviour change science applies to dietetics. Dietary interventions delivered in the primary care setting are recommended to be underpinned by behaviour change theories and models to enhance patient outcomes. However, the reporting of important intervention components such as behaviour change techniques need to be considered and made more explicit for replicability. Dietitians consulting in primary care settings can use behaviour change science in their practice to understand patient dietary behaviours and develop patient-centred intervention strategies. The Behaviour Change Technique Taxonomy (v1) is a useful tool that dietitians can use in practice as evidence based strategies. At a university level, there are areas to improve how students learn about behaviour change science, such as consistency in content taught and more detailed assessments. Future research needs to explore dietitians’ perspectives of behaviour change science application to their practice to provide optimal nutrition care to patients with diet-related diseases.
Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
School of Health Sci & Soc Wrk
Griffith Health
Full Text

Schools in England have undergone huge change since neoliberal ideologies introduced notions of choice and competition. This study seeks to understand how teachers rationalised their roles alongside the demands of performativity associated with managerialisation and marketisation. As such, this research explores the lived experiences of teachers within a neoliberal hegemony. Methodologically, I used a social constructionist paradigm and an interpretative phenomenological analysis after Smith, Flowers and Larkin (2009). I conducted six in-depth semi-structured interviews with teachers in primary, middle and secondary school settings. My interpretative phenomenological analysis used Wenger’s (1989) concept of a community of practice as well as concepts from social theorists such as Habermas (1979, 1996), Giddens (1986, 1991) and Bourdieu (1984, 1994) to frame my thinking. The research found that the changes being experienced by teachers are not aligned with their understandings and beliefs concerning education, either for themselves as a professional body or for the pupils in their care. As such, the teachers express notions such as the suppression of their voice and the oppression of their autonomy. Furthermore, teachers’ descriptions include philosophical and practical resistance to change. The descriptions of change and resistance show alignment towards notions of welfare education not neoliberal managerialisation and marketisation. The nature of the new knowledge concerns changed forms of organisational experiences, from changed forms of organisational communication to changed forms of learning. It is this change, brought about by managerialisation and marketisation, that the teachers describe as resisting, both philosophically and practically. As such the participants describe a clash of lifeworlds and a clash of doxa, such that they experience ontological insecurity. Furthermore the managerialisation and marketisation of schools is at odds with Wenger’s (1989) notion of a community of practice and as such, is degrading organisational learning and practice.

Digitalization is a fast paced phenomenon that is recognised to be of importance for the auditing profession’s future. This study has, through an innovative approach, gathered the ideas and perspectives on the perceived future role of digitalization in relation to the auditing profession. In order to ensure that these ideas and perspectives were to be practically relevant, 14 Swedish auditors were interviewed. This study was initiated through an evident need of research about the future role of digitalization, as this role is recognized as important but rather under-theorized according to both practitioners and academics.   In order to tackle the need for research within the relatively unexplored area of digitalization in relation to the auditing profession, a dialogue with practitioners led to the creation of the following research question:    -How do auditors expect digitalization to shape the future of the auditing profession?   In order to accurately answer the constructed research question, three sub-questions were established:   - How do auditors perceive past and current changes of the auditing profession? - How do auditors perceive futures changes of the auditing profession? - How do auditors perceive the future role of digitalization?   The underlying purpose of this study was to push for a unification between the academic and practice community. To achieve this, a follow-up sub-question was generated:   - How do auditors perceive the role of academic research to shape the future of the auditing profession?   And inductive research approach was adopted for this study, in line with the epistemological standpoint of interpretivism and a constructionism ontological approach. Furthermore, this thesis was a conducted qualitative exploratory research that employed semi-structured interviews. The research strategy of this study was a combination of narrative inquiry with grounded theory in order to collect data and to generate theories for building knowledge.   The results from the interviews with the auditors generated findings that were used to answer our four sub-questions, and therefore subsequently our main research question. It was concluded that academic research was not directly used by practitioners, since it was not found usable from a practical perspective. Furthermore, it was concluded through applying change theories that digitalization is, by auditors, expected to play an important role in the future of their profession and a list of driving forces was established. Moreover, discussions on how the auditing profession and digitalization will interact in the future are disclosed in this study.

Dans un monde de changement continu, les dispositifs de formation doivent trouver des logiques impulsant une dynamique d’adaptation au changement. Cette recherche porte sur le changement opéré en formation professionnelle infirmière suite à la réforme de 2009. Elle vise la compréhension des phénomènes liés au processus de transformation de cette profession et tente d’expliquer notamment les modalités de passage d’une logique de professionnalisation à une autre. Elle rend compte des pratiques de professionnalisation émergeantes et de la manière dont les tuteurs-infirmiers ont su se saisir des nouvelles logiques de formation pour accompagner les étudiants dans leur parcours de professionnalisation. Nous sommes partie de l’hypothèse que le rôle de tuteur de stage, voire la professionnalisation de son activité de tutelle, peuvent être un vecteur significatif de la professionnalisation des novices mais aussi de la professionnalisation de toute une profession. La réflexion théorique proposée permet d’éclairer les nouveaux rapports aux savoirs dans la logique de construction de compétences. Les résultats s’appuient sur des observations participantes, 50 entretiens semi-directifs collectifs et individuels, réalisés auprès de différents acteurs concernés par la professionnalisation des novices, dans deux structures hospitalières, à des temps distincts. L’analyse a permis d’identifier des logiques de changement différentes et l’intérêt d’un accompagnement des acteurs de terrain dans une dynamique socioconstructiviste, pour une transformation durable de leurs pratiques
In a world of continuous change, training procedures should implement new ways to boost dynamic adaptation to change. This research focuses on the change brought in vocational nursing training after 2009 Reform. It accounts for the phenomena related to the transformation process within the profession; in particular, how to shift from a former training system to a new one. It reports about emerging professional practices and the ability of tutors in nursing to seize new logical approaches to support their students on their vocational path. The starting point is the hypothesis that the internship tutor’s role or the professionalization of their supervisory activities, are significant vectors in their trainees’ proficiency and the professionalism of an entire vocation. The suggested theoretical approach sheds light on the new relationship to knowledge in the logical acquisition of skills. The results are based on an observation of participants, 50 collective and individual semi-structured interviews conducted with various actors involved in the professionalization of learners in two hospitals at separate times. The analysis has enabled to identify several logical approaches regarding change and also notice the importance of supporting the actors on the field in a social constructivist dynamics for a sustainable transformation of their practices

This master thesis examines a change in health care, in a county council in Norrbotten’s county. This change, which is referred to as “competence-exchange” (kompetensväxling) by the studied organization, means that tasks are redistributed between different workgroups. The possibility of redistributing tasks was due to the introduction of a new occupational group called healthcare service-personnel (vårdnära servicepersonal) in the studied activity. The primary mission of Healthcare service-personnel is to perform service tasks, but also some simpler care-related tasks. The tasks provided by the healthcare service-personnel was earlier performed by the healthcare-staff in the studied organization. When healthcare service-personnel now perform service tasks, healthcare-staff can instead focus on their primary healthcare-tasks and redistribute certain healthcare-tasks between each other. The theoretical starting points in the paper are bureaucracy, power and authority, system theory and the interest model. Other theoretical starting points in the paper are individual and organization, previous research on the redistribution of healthcare-tasks and central concepts regarding professional and competence. The essays approach was conducted through a qualitative method of respondents from the occupational groups nurse, assistant-nurse, healthcare service-personnel, unit Manager for healthcare service-personnel, trade Unions, project leaders and organizational developer. The respondents describe their experience of the redistribution of tasks in the studied organization. The methodological starting point for this essay is based on knowledge sociology that deals with the analysis of social constructions of reality. The result shows that healthcare professionals are positive about the relief provided by healthcare service-personnel in the performance of service-tasks in the organization. However, there is some resistance to the fact that healthcare service-personnel perform care-related tasks. There are also shortcomings in the rules and methods of redistribution of tasks. The result also shows that no tasks are exchanged between staff, instead tasks are being relieved only from a top-down perspective to the professional group with lower education. In fact, there is no competence-exchange in the redistribution of tasks.
Denna masteruppsats undersöker en förändring i hälso- och sjukvården, i ett landsting i Norrbottens län. Denna förändring, som benämns som kompetensväxling i den studerade verksamheten, innebär att arbetsuppgifter omfördelas mellan olika yrkesgrupper. Möjligheten att omfördela arbetsuppgifter kom på grund av att en ny yrkesgrupp vid namn Vårdnära service infördes i den studerade verksamheten. Vårdnära servicepersonals primära uppdrag är att utföra serviceuppgifter men också vissa enklare vårdrelaterade uppgifter. Uppgifterna som Vårdnära servicepersonal utför, utfördes tidigare av vårdpersonal i den studerade verksamheten. Då Vårdnära servicepersonal nu utför serviceuppgifter kan vårdpersonalen istället fokusera på deras primära vårduppgifter samt omfördela vissa vårduppgifter mellan varandra. De teoretiska utgångspunkterna i uppsatsen är byråkrati, makt och auktoritet, systemteori och intressentmodellen. Andra teoretiska utgångspunkter i uppsatsen är individ och organisation, tidigare forskning gällande omfördelning av arbetsuppgifter inom hälso- och sjukvård samt centrala begrepp gällande profession och kompetens. Uppsatsen utfördes genom en kvalitativ metod med intervjupersoner från yrkesgrupperna sjuksköterska, undersköterska, vårdnära servicepersonal, enhetschef för vårdnära service, fackliga organisationer, projektledare samt verksamhetsutvecklare. Intervjupersonerna beskriver deras upplevelse av omfördelningen av arbetsuppgifter i den studerade organisationen. Den metodologiska utgångspunkten för denna uppsats grundar sig i kunskapssociologin som handlar om analysen av sociala konstruktioner av verkligheten. Resultatet visar att vårdpersonalen är positiva till den avlastning som vårdnära servicepersonal ger i utförandet av serviceuppgifter i verksamheten. Dock finns ett visst motstånd till att vårdnära servicepersonal utför vårdrelaterade uppgifter. Det finns också brister i tydlighet gällande regler och metoder för omfördelning av arbetsuppgifterna. Resultatet visar även att inga arbetsuppgifter växlas mellan personalen, utan arbetsuppgifter avlastas enbart från ett uppifrånperspektiv till en yrkesgrupp med lägre utbildning. Alltså sker faktiskt ingen kompetensväxling i omfördelningen av arbetsuppgifter.

I detta arbete studeras varför idrottslärare i större utsträckning väljer att lämna sitt yrke för ett annat. Tidigare studier visar att 18 procent av nyutbildade idrottslärare slutar inom loppet av fyra år. Den genomsnittliga arbetsperioden som idrottslärare är ungefär nio år. Med en metod av öppna intervjuer kommer fem före detta idrottslärare att svara på varför just de slutade som idrottslärare för att fortsätta arbeta inom något annat. Dessa svar har sedan granskats ur en handlingsteori och jämförts med tidigare kända anledningar till varför arbetstagare slutat sin yrken. Detta för att få en djupare förståelse till varför respondenterna har valt att sluta och vad som fick dem att arbeta med det de gör idag. Resultaten av denna undersökning visar att flera av de före detta idrottslärarna redan har fått eller riskerade att få skador på kroppen på grund av sitt yrke så som i rygg, knän, öron och röst. Andra anledningar som gjorde att respondenterna slutade som idrottslärare var bland annat för lite frihet då de nu känner att de har mer frihet i sitt arbete gällande vad de ska göra och planera. De känner att de kan påverka mer med sina nuvarande yrken än mot vad de kunde som idrottslärare. I diskussionen diskuteras det om hur respondenterna mår idag och hur de tror att deras livstillvaro hade varit om de fortsatt som idrottslärare. Det diskuteras också om hur dessa anledningar är riktade för enbart idrottslärare eller mot personer som slutar sitt jobb för ett annat överlag. Slutsatsen är att den faktor som påverkar en idrottslärares val att sluta är att jobbet eller arbetsplatsen inte var som förväntat enligt den anställde på grund av skaderisken, missanpassning mellan arbetet och individ, få utvecklings-, påverkansmöjligheter inom sitt arbete eller stress på grund av överansträngning och känsla av obalans i sig själv. Samtliga respondenterna fick bättre livstillvaro av att byta yrke.
In this work, it is taken up reasons for why PE teachers increasingly choosing to leave their profession for another. Previous studies show that 18precent of newly qualified PE teacher quits within four years. The average period of employment as a PE teacher is about nine years. With a method of open interviews, five former PE teacher answer why just they ended leaving the profession as a PE teacher to continue to work in something else. These responses are then examined from an action theory and compared with previously known reasons why workers leave their jobs. This is to get a deeper understanding as to why respondents have chosen to stop and what made them work with what they do today. The results of this survey show that many of the former PE teachers have already received or are at the risk of damage to the body because of their profession in the back, knees, ears and voice. Other reasons that made respondents who ended PE teachers included too little freedom as they now feel they have more freedom in their work regarding what to do and plan. They feel that they can influence more with their current professions than towards what they could as a PE teacher. In the discussion that discussed how respondents feel today and how they think their lifestyle absence would have been if they continued as a PE teacher. It also discusses how these reasons are targeted solely PE teachers or persons who ends his job for another general. The conclusion is that the main factor influencing the PE teachers' choice to quit is to the job or workplace was not as expected, according to the employee cause of injury risk, the mismatch between job and person. to get development, advocacy opportunities in their work or stress due to overwork and sense of imbalance itself. All respondents received better life existence of changing profession.

Poussées par les changements majeurs de l’environnement de l’enseignement supérieur, les universités françaises se sont engagées dans un mouvement de modernisation de leur gestion. Ces changements, engendrés par de nombreux facteurs sociaux économiques et technologiques, ont amené des gouvernements successifs à entreprendre des réformes importantes pour faire face à ces évolutions. De nombreuses publications scientifiques anglo-saxonnes et françaises soutiennent que le prix à payer pour les améliorations apportées par ces réformes est très élevé, dénaturant parfois l’idée de base de l’institution universitaire. Ainsi, la présente recherche s’inscrit dans une thématique qui se trouve au cœur des débats publics et scientifiques suscités par l’évolution de la gouvernance des universités en France. Notre recherche vise à répondre à la question de la nature de l’impact du « managérialisme » croissant sur l’identité universitaire. L’importation d’outils et de concepts développés dans la sphère du privé, permet-elle de meilleures efficacité et efficience des organisations universitaires sans toucher fondamentalement à la nature de celles-ci ? Ou à l’inverse, l’identité universitaire, vue comme un ensemble complexe de valeurs, de missions, de modes opératoires, est modifiée par la « modernisation de la gestion » ?La recherche s’appuie sur une étude approfondie du cas de trois universités françaises à périmètre disciplinaire différencié : université pluridisciplinaire, université scientifique et université de lettres et sciences sociales. L’analyse thématique de contenu du discours des universitaires révèle une modification identitaire importante due aux différents facteurs. Notre objectif est d’étudier dans quelles mesures cette modification est imputée au managérialisme. Notre recherche met en évidence des tensions entre les normes, les valeurs et les pratiques traditionnels de l’université française et les objectifs de nouvelle structure institutionnelle et le nouveau management émergeants
Driven by major changes in the higher education environment, French universities have engaged themselves in a comprehensive process of management modernization. In parallel, governments have undertaken number of reforms to face up important socio-economic and technological evolutions. These reforms aroused a vague of criticism in English and French scientific literature, stating namely, that the price to pay for the improvements proposed by these reforms is very high, sometimes even distorting the basic idea of what is university.Thus, the present research is part of the scientific and public debates incited by the changes in the governance of universities in France. It aims to analyse the nature of the impact of growing “managerialism” on the university identity. Does the introduction of private sector management tools and concepts allow improved efficiency and effectiveness of universities without altering its fundamental nature? Or, on the contrary, this “modernisation of management” transforms the university identity, which is a complex set of values, missions, operating mode… To answer these questions the research proposes a multiple case study of three French public universities with diverse academic profiles: multidisciplinary, scientific and social sciences universities. The contents analysis of the interviewed academics’ discourse reveals important identity modification due to different factors. Our aim is to see in what extent this modification is attributed to managerialism. In so doing, our research exposes number of tensions between traditional norms, values and practices, on the one hand, and the objectives of the emerging formal institutional structure and management, on the other hand

När specialpedagogen använder handledning som verktyg söker hon åstadkomma förändring genom att ge pedagogerna råd. Fokus i samtalet riktas framförallt på barnet och på pedagogens arbete. Specialpedagogen kan ses som en slags expert på området barn i svårigheter och den pedagogiska praktiken. När specialpedagogen använder handledning som rum för reflektion söker hon åstadkomma förändring genom att ställa frågor för att stimulera pedagogens tänkande och stödja hennes utforskande av hur problemet kan förstås. Specialpedagogen kan då ses som en slags expert på att föra reflekterande samtal och samtalets fokus riktas huvudsakligen mot pedagogen. Specialpedagogernas repertoar innehåller därmed såväl förmåga att handleda genom att ge pedagogerna råd med utgångspunkt i det enskilda barnet som att stimulera pedagogernas reflekterande över aspekter av sitt arbete.

Avhandlings syfte är att undersöka hur elva specialpedagoger beskriver och genomför handledning med pedagoger i förskola och grundskola. Intresset riktas mot samtalens innehåll och mot de påverkansprocesser som äger rum i samtalet. Handledningssamtalen studeras ur specialpedagogens perspektiv.

Specialpedagogers handledningssamtal kan bidra till att vidga synen på objektet för den specialpedagogiska verksamheten såväl som befästa ett individperspektiv på området. I denna studie dominerar användningen av handledning som verktyg. Utmaningen förefaller ligga i att söka skapa villkor som även gynnar användningen av handledning som rum för reflektion.

The aim of this thesis is to contribute to knowledge about how the work and profession of upper secondary school teachers is understood and shaped by the teachers in the beginning of the 21st century, and to relate that understanding of work and professional development to the strivings of the teachers’ trade unions and the state. With the implementation of an innovation as a starting point, the teachers’ narratives also described their work in a broader sense. Connections and contradictions between those descriptions of everyday work are analysed in relation to central ideas in research and state and trade union policy. The empirical data were mainly generated through interviews and studies of state- and teachers’ trade union policy documents. Twenty-three teachers at four upper secondary schools were interviewed twice, with a one year interval. Five school leaders were also interviewed. A minor questionnaire added data concerning professional development. 102 documents published by the State and the teachers’ trade unions between 1964 and 2004 were analysed using critical discourse analysis.

The analysis is eclectic, drawing on perspectives and conceptions from theories on professions, organisations, school development and the frame factor theory. The overall approach of the study is practice related research and includes an intention to draw attention to connections between micro and macro levels.

The analyses of the teachers’ narratives on implementation indicate that they were able to do the job despite unsatisfactory conditions thanks to high work morale and extensive experience. The infrastructure provided by the frame factors was weak or working at cross purposes. The school-wide support for development was stronger at one of the four schools.

The teachers’ formal freedom of action was substantial. In practice it was restricted by frame factors and the fact that the potential freedom was not fully used. Thus, the actual autonomy was more limited than it appeared to be. The school culture included elements of balkanised and contrived collegiality. Many tasks were delegated to the interdisciplinary work teams, but the teams did not seem to live up to expectations. Primarily, they lacked time and an appropriate group composition. There was a clash between the interdisciplinary work teams and the teachers’ need to co-operate within subject work teams. The teachers did not regard interdisciplinary work teams as useful for school or professional development.

Supportive conditions for long-term, shared learning and dialogue between researchers and practitioners were largely lacking. Visions such as learning organisations were far removed from the everyday life in the schools. Changes in organisational structures at the schools have partly been counterproductive.

The far-reaching restructuring of the Swedish upper secondary schools implemented from the end of the 1980s and during the 1990s was in line with international reform trends. It also had specific national characteristics. The concept professional teachers was introduced in some Government bills around 1990. The teachers’ trade unions adopted the concept and it became increasingly significant in trade union policy during the 1990s. At the turn of the millennium it was a dominant idea in their documents.

During the 1990s several influential discourses became established as shared views between the State, trade unions and some researchers, e.g. what I have called change and professional discourses. They were rarely problematized in state and teachers’ trade union policy documents. The two agreements between the teachers’ trade unions and the employers, in 1995 and 2000, constituted another component of what has been termed a system-shift in the Swedish school system. They influenced the teachers’ working conditions and implied new strategies for the trade unions. The professional, change and management discourses salient in the documents were brought into schools with insufficient opportunities for the teachers to develop a deep meaning of the discourses.

The study emphasizes the importance of practice oriented studies, related to wider contexts, in order to provide insights into teachers’ work and professional development. It also brings nuances to, and problematizes theoretical conceptions and discourses in the field.

Key-words: teaching profession, upper secondary teachers, change, school reform, professional development, school development, frame factors, school governance, school policy, trade union

Organisational change within the NHS is a familiar event. This study explored the impact it has on staff in a clinical setting , and focuses on how staff experience such change. The study took place in two Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, in two separate NHS Trusts in England. The exploration is qualitative, using grounded theory, and data collection is through semi-structured individual interviews completed at two points in time: the initial principal interview, and a follow up interview. Sampling is purposive and focused on staff within multi-disciplinary teams providing front-line clinical services. The study took place across two NHS Trusts to enhance reflexivity of the researcher, and methodological rigour. The interviews were audiorecorded and transcribed verbatim. The transcripts were analysed using grounded theory, underpinned by a social constructionist epistemology. A sample of 11 professional clinical staff members across two NHS Trusts volunteered to participate in the study, each completing two interviews. The findings are derived from 22 extended interview transcripts. Analysis of the data generated led to the conceptualisation of a process of being organisationally changed impacting on individuals' work identity and sense of self. There was a perceived mismatch between clinical and organisational values leading to incongruence, and re-valuing . Through the processes of deprofessionalisation and deskilling , participants experienced loss and diminishment of identity, and a process of becoming indistinct, culminating in a grieving of identity. Emergence from this was conceptualised as a process of reconciliation, which took the form of either accepting a sub-identity, or finding a way of preserving aspects of professional identity within organisational constraints. The process of being organisationally changed is developed and discussed, with use of illustrative data extracts. The findings illustrate the ways organisational change can impact on the "human dimension", as experienced by participants. This study contributes to an in depth exploration and understanding of organisational change impact on NHS clinical staff.

In the past two decades the Swedish compulsory school for students aged 7 to 16 has undergone major processes of reform and change. On a structural level these have ushered in a new era with a fundamentally changed assignment for the schools and its teachers. In this thesis, however, it is assumed that the teachers as individual actors and as groups have agency to accomplish change and alter structures. The thesis has been written within a several years’ inter­active research project with teachers from three compulsory schools. Based on data created in the project on how new and changing groups and working groups within teachers’ work lead to an extended assignment, the study focuses teachers’ negotiation of professional identities regarding the entire work situation. Etienne Wenger’s (1998) social theory on identity, entitled “Communities of Practice”, is used to deepen the understanding of the data. In the framework of an interactive research project the overall aim of the thesis is to describe and analyze how teachers negotiate professional identities in compulsory school. The aim is also to describe and analyze teachers’ learning and development of knowledge in the project. The central research question is: How and about what do teachers negotiate professional identities in different communities of practice? By using the interactive research approach the goal has been to develop a democratic dialogue and learning processes together with the participating teachers. One ambition is to enhance the knowledge of teachers as co-researchers within research projects and as teacher-researchers at work in school. The fora of the interactive project were informal talks, dialogues for learning, individual interviews and focus groups. The results of the study show that teachers negotiate professional identities in a flexible expanding multimembership of communities of practice. As brokers of information and knowledge between and within communities of practice at school, and from various identity positions, the teachers negotiate overlapping identities. Memberships in communities for adults only are growing in relation to teachers’ work regarding the entire work situation. The study’s main conclusion is that teachers in the new era negotiate identities within a web of tensions between fragmentation and coherence of the complexity of the work in its entirety through the multimembership in communities of practice. The thesis proposes that an awareness of complexity is fundamental, and that such an understanding can be enhanced by the teachers by developing themselves as brokers and by their reification of boundary objects within a complex multi­membership. Analysis of data shows that teachers in the interactive project have had the opportunity to further develop competences to negotiate identities as teacher-researchers at work in school. Data from the project are moreover analyzed within the context of globalized and diversified structural changes such as decentralization, economic transformations, cultural standardization, the individua­­­­lized knowledge society and the reflective society. A conclusion is that teachers seem to operate within an increasing globalization of the teaching profession and towards identities as globalized teachers.
Lärare i en ny tid: Om kunskapsbildning mellan lärare och forskare

The current study attempted to identify conditions that affect the manner in which Western Australian primary school teachers perceive recent curriculum changes; the types of support they access; and the relative usefulness of this support. Based on preliminary findings in the first phase of this study and the research literature it was expected that teacher self-efficacy, teacher characteristics such as age and years of teaching, and school context such as the level of 'innovativeness' would prove to be influential in the process of implementing new initiatives. A model expressing the relationships between these concepts was developed and evaluated in the second phase of this study. This study is important for two reasons. It focused on Western Australian primary school teachers, whereas most previous research focused on high school teachers, and it explored ways to help teachers deal with future changes instead of simply identifying their responses to changes. It is therefore hoped that the education system will be more informed and better able to provide appropriate support for teachers when faced with future reforms. The study was conducted in two parts. The purpose of phase one was to become familiar with the current circumstances of teachers in relation to curriculum change. By focusing on the attitudes and behaviours of teachers from 'innovative' schools it was thought more could be learned than in schools that maintain the status quo. Qualitative methods of semi-structured interviews, informal observations and the analysis of websites and school documents were utilised throughout this phase. The second phase of the study employed a quantitative approach, based on the findings of the first phase, specifically a process of questionnaire construction and distribution throughout the defined population. A number of cautious conclusions have been made within the limits of this study. Firstly, the most useful type of professional development for teachers involves teachers interacting with each other. Teachers need time to discuss issues and share their successes. However, Action Research as a means of professional development is currently under utilised. It was discovered that most teachers were positive towards curriculum change, yet an overwhelming workload has proved a formidable barrier to new initiatives. In addition, most teachers will modify initiatives to meet the needs of their students and to fit in with their existing orientations. Consequently, school structures need to become more flexible to encourage teachers to engage in innovative practices. Interestingly, the self-efficacy of a teacher influences the way they perceive and cope with curriculum change, however teacher characteristics, such as age and the number of years teaching, did not yield substantially different results when teachers were categorised along these dimensions. School context, as defined by the level of 'innovativeness', did produce differential results in terms of teacher attitudes and responses to curriculum change, and the type of professional development accessed. Finally, schools may need to involve parents and the wider school community in the school level decision-making processes if they truly are to become ' learning communities'.

The overall aim of this thesis was to identify actions needed to introduce professional change in histopathology in order to respond to the Government's Modernisation Agenda for Pathology and meet cancer targets by reducing the turnaround time taken for a patient to receive a diagnosis and therefore start treatment. In addition, change methodology was examined to help cope with increasing workloads, both in terms of numbers of specimens and degree of complexity, and to break down assumptions of professional boundaries to establish the skill requirements to make best use of newly developed roles and applied technology. The work took the form of action research and the outcome from each step informed the direction of the rest of the project and resulted in changing working practices. The project work included the development of training programmes and examinations to support extended and expert roles for biomedical scientists which would help to solve the recruitment and retention crisis in histopathology.

Tidigare forskning förutspår att redovisningsbranschen inom de kommande 25 åren kommer att stöta på turbulens till följd av den intensiva IT-utveckling som format både samhälle och organisationer. Redovisningsarbetet tros effektiviseras när redovisningen automatiseras och förändringsprocessen beräknas utvecklas i allt snabbare takt de kommande åren. För att inte bli omkörd av sina konkurrenter gäller det att ligga i framkant och kontinuerligt leta efter nya digitala lösningar samt skapa nya automatiserade arbetsprocesser.  Syftet med studien är att förstå och förklara hur automatiseringsprocessen ser ut på redovisningsbyråer idag, hur branschen och dess arbete har förändrats till följd av automatiseringen samt vilka aktuella förändringar redovisningskonsulter står inför. Studien har baserats på empiri grundat i en kvalitativ metod med data från elva semistrukturerade intervjuer på följande byråer; PwC, Ernst & Young, KPMG, Grant Thornton, Accountor samt Wint. Respondenterna består utav fem redovisningskonsulter med varierad erfarenhet samt sex personer med en mer ansvarig roll på byråerna, såsom gruppchef eller manager.  Några av de slutsatser som studien har genererat är att automatiseringen medför att redovisningskonsulter kan fokusera på mer kvalificerade uppgifter när teknik ersätter de monotona arbetsuppgifterna, vilket skapar större värde för kunden. Arbetsbelastningen på redovisningsbyråer tros därmed vara fortsatt hög. Trots de många fördelar och positiva effekter med automatisering har studien visat att utmaningar gällande exempelvis förändringsmotstånd, gammal lagstiftning samt nya konkurrenter bromsar automatiseringsprocessen. Redovisningsbranschen väntas därmed möta stora förändringar vilket denna studie kommer att belysa.
Previous research predicts that the accounting industry in the next 25 years will experience a lot of turbulence as a result of the intensive technological developments. When bookkeeping becomes automated, the work of an accounting consultant presumes to be more effective and the automation process will most likely develop even faster in the following years. In order for the accounting firms not to be overtaken and lose market shares to their rivals, the importance of being aware of, and continuously look for new automated solutions appears to be meaningful. The aim of this study is to understand and explain how the automation process looks like at accounting firms today, how the industry has changed as a result of the technological developments and what current changes the accounting consultants are facing. The study is based on empirical evidence from a qualitative method with data from eleven semi-structured interviews at the following accounting firms; PwC, Ernst & Young, KPMG, Grant Thornton, Accountor and Wint. Our respondents includes five accounting consultants with different experience and six individuals who has a more responsible role at the accounting firms, such as manager. Some of the conclusions that the study has generated is that the technological developments has resulted in the fact that the accounting consultants can put a deeper focus in qualified tasks that creates a greater value for the client, rather than perform the standardized bookkeeping. Furthermore, the workload is presumed to remain at a high level according to the argument above. Despite the many benefits and the positive effects of automation, the study has shown that there are also many challenges when it comes to resistance to transformations, old regulations and new rivals entering the market. The accounting industry is therefore expected to face some major changes which we will highlight throughout the study.

This doctoral thesis is an exploration of the challenges in bringing about effective change in schools. The focus is on professional learning strategies and their use in the implementation of change. This research details a plan to implement an integrated curriculum. After lengthy consideration and various professional learning activities this plan was withdrawn. Experiences from the school provide insight into the complex challenges associated with change. The single day, ‘one-shot’ style of professional development has fallen from favour (Fullan, 1995; Miles, 1995; Day, 1999; McLaughlin and Talbert, 2001; Groundwater-Smith and Mockler, 2009; Hargreaves and Fullan, 2012). The trend has been to seek alternatives, including professional learning communities (Sergiovanni, 1999; McLaughlin and Talbert, 2001; Durrant and Holland, 2006; Groundwater-Smith and Mockler, 2009; Hargreaves and Fullan, 2012) and networks of learners (Day and Sachs, 2009; Groundwater-Smith and Mockler, 2009; Darling-Hammond, 2010; Sachs, 2011). This research considers these models, but is more concerned with professional learning practices used in the site school. The research focus is on understanding factors that impede or facilitate change, and the role of professional learning strategies. The connection between cultural context and the strategies used to support learning and change emerged as a critical point of analysis. The methodological design is an ethnographic case study. As the customary term ‘participant observer’ did not accurately represent my role, I adopted the term ‘embedded researcher’. This position allowed for extensive insider knowledge, perceptive work with participants, and flexible and extended access which had analytical implications. The evidence based conclusions are formed through this comprehensive access. This role extended the opportunity for creative insights.

Much has been written in academic and popular publications about organizational change. Topics have ranged from case studies to anecdotal stories of how leaders can change an organization. There is little written on changing the culture and vision of a profession at the macro level.

This dissertation shows that one key to effecting change within a profession is to educate those at the entrant level and thereby effect change with the profession. Over time, these new entrants to the profession will rise to senior positions and be able to effect greater change through the hiring, training, and mentoring processes inherent in the professions and the organizations for which they work. One way to effect change in these entrants is through education in college and professional schools. This study is specifically focused on effecting change in the interdisciplinary field of engineering and public policy. Public policy involves countless infrastructure issues at all levels of government. Engineers are well-versed in dealing with the technical issues of infrastructure but their voice is often lacking at the policy level. Similarly, political scientists are well-versed in policy but are often lacking in a thorough understanding of the technical aspects of the policy.

Through an introductory course in engineering and public policy, undergraduate students from the seemingly disparate fields of engineering and political science were placed in a common classroom and through lectures, writings, presentations, and guided discussions their attitudes on key areas were changed. Areas studied were professional interest, legitimacy, deference, the public policy process, and education outside of a specific field. Through the process of education, changes in each of these areas was possible. Further, the movement was towards making students in each discipline more open to the input, opinions, and attitudes of others, and specifically in shifting engineers toward a more positive view of the public policy process. Being exposed to these topics and to each other’s thought processes, changes in professional attitudes were made.

While there is not a specific profession for which any research has been done, the military is used, in places, as an analog to the profession of engineering.

Den här uppsatsen handlar om utveckling och utvecklingsarbete på förskolan. Utveckling är ett välanvänt begrepp på förskolor runt om i Sverige. Det är begrepp  som ofta används utan större eftertanke. Vad innebär egentligen utveckling och hur utvecklas något eller någon?  I min uppsats undersöker jag faktorer som upplevs påverka utvecklingsarbetet i förskolans utbildning. Syftet med uppsatsen är att upptäcka små och stora aspekter som gör skillnad, för individen och för helheten i förskolans utvecklingsarbete. Mina forskningsfrågor är följande: – Vad innebär fenomenet utvecklingsarbete i förskolans utbildning?  – Vilka möjligheter/svårigheter ser erfarna förskollärare i ett utvecklingsarbete? – Vilka faktorer påverkar utvecklingsprocessen? – Vilka former av praktisk och teoretisk kunskap krävs för att ett utvecklingsarbete ska ske? Empirin består av berättelser från min egen vardag, om upplevelser och tankar som genom åren kommit och gått. För att få perspektiv på det jag tror mig veta möter jag erfarna förskollärare, jag sitter med i olika samtalsforum samt träffar en fokusgrupp. Genom mina samtal och genom läsning av vetenskapliga och litterära texter uppmärksammar jag olika aspekter på utveckling och utvecklingsarbete i förskolan.  Min undersökning visar att utvecklingsarbete är ett komplext fenomen. Små faktorer kan påverka om utveckling sker eller inte. Det finns faktorer som kan hjälpa till i ett utvecklingsarbete, men även faktorer som kan stjälpa ett utvecklingsarbete. Det finns ingen snabb lösning för att utveckling ska ske, det är en lång process som kräver ett engagemang från alla. Genom att uppmärksamma dessa aspekter kan vi förändra och utveckla vår förskolas utbildning mycket lättare. Att arbeta tillsammans kan vara en utmaning, men är även förskolans styrka. Vi behöver ta hjälp av varandra och arbeta tillsammans för att utveckling ska ske. Utveckling sker till stor del i vårt handlande, men det är inte vårt handlande som vi uppmärksammar och fokuserar på. Uppsatsen är indelad i fyra kapitel som visar på utvecklingsarbetets komplexitet: kultur, administrationsarbete, tillit och praktisk kunskap.
This essay is about development and developmental work within preschools. Development is a well-acclaimed term within preschools in Sweden. A term usually used without much thought. What does development really mean and how does something or someone develop? In this essay I will investigate factors which are considered to have an influence on developmental work within the preschool’s educational system. The purpose of this essay is to discover small and large aspects that makes a difference for, both the individual and for the preschools, education in a developmental work. My research questions are as follows: -          What does the phenomenon of development work mean for the preschool’s education? -          What opportunities/difficulties does experienced preschool teachers see within a developmental work? -          What factors influences the development process?  -          Which forms of practical and theoretical knowledge is demanded for a development work to proceed?  This empiricism consists of stories from my own daily life, about experiences and thoughts that through the years have come and gone. To gain a perspective on my experiences, I  participate in a couple of different discussion forums and I also see a focus group. Throughout my conversations and through reading scientific and literary texts, I draw attention to various aspects on development and development work within preschools. My research shows that development work is a complex phenomenon. Small factors can affect whether development takes place or not. There are factors that can help in a development work, but also factors that can overturn it. There is no quick fix for development to take place, it is a long process that requires commitment from everyone. By paying attention to these aspects, we can change and develop our preschool education much more easily. Working together can be a challenge, but it is also the strength of preschools. We need to support each other and work together for development to take place. Development takes place largely in our present actions rather than in the administrative work. The essay is divided into four chapters that show the complexity of the development work: culture, administration work, trust and practical knowledge.

The nature of professional expertise has been widely debated in the literature. However it has been examined primarily from a dichotomy of perspectives - either from an experiential or a cognitive focus, without the attempt to integrate these, and other aspects of expertise, into an integrated and coherent model. This research is structured in two sections. The first part incorporates a philosophical discussion, which advances an integrated model of professional expertise. The second part uses a case study focused on the field of medical imaging to illustrate and refine the model. Ten professionals identified as experts in the various sub-specialties within medical imaging were guided through a sustained period of interviews and logging of critical incidents in order to elicit in-depth data in relation to the process of expertise. Findings showed that while expertise is situated in the context of practice, it incorporates several dimensions working together in an integrated, seamless fashion through the medium of the individual practitioner. The proposed model integrates five main aspects, namely: knowledge base; cognitive processes; internal integrative processes; interpersonal relationships; and professional practice. That is, it is a synthesis of a particular knowledge base, the cognitive processes, personality and internal processes of the practitioner. It manifests through, and builds on, interpersonal relationships with clients and other professionals, and is expressed through the actual doing of professional practice. It is through the reflexive examination of practice and management of change that professionals may transform these five integrated aspects into the qualitative state of expertise. One of the implications of these findings for higher education are that institutions providing professional education need to value all the dimensions of expertise and their effective integration in order to promote the learning required to advance professionals towards this level of practice.