Organization-bound professionalism : essays on contemporary expert work

Abstract

The three essays of the thesis explore the role of organizations in professional work and the role of professionalism in organizations, by analyzing novel data from three distinct empirical cases. The first essay uses the case of retail clinics firms in the U.S. market for primary care, to investigate how firms can penetrate the barriers of exclusive professional licenses and enter markets for professional work. The second essay uses the case of tax preparation work in the U.S., to study effects of (pseudo-) professional identity on firm performance in the context of non-professional work. The third essay uses the case of pro bono accounting work, to examine the process by which moral motivation of professional work translates into efficient, but morally contradictory outcomes. Together, the essays show that professionalism is a powerful cultural and sociological concept that has effects across a wide range of organizational phenomena.