Responsive professionalism in post-NPM reforms: the case of the Swedish police
Year: 2021
Type: article
Abstract: This article investigates responsive professionalism in local collaboration across organizational boundaries, introduced by public reforms as a means to address the downsides of new public management (NPM) and to foster professionalism ‘closer to the citizens’. The case in point is the Swedish police reform, and the empirical material comprises 39 semi-structured interviews with police officers. Drawing on the work of Noordegraaf (2020. “Protective or Connective Professionalism? How Connected Professionals Can (Still) Act as Autonomous and Authoritative Experts.” Journal of Professions and Organization 7: 205–223. doi:10.1093/jpo/joaa011) and Anteby et al. (2016. “Three Lenses on Occupations and Professions in Organizations: Becoming, Doing, and Relating.” Academy of Management Annals 10 (1): 183–244), indicating that occupations today earn recognition for their professionalism within wider networks of other occupations, this study examines police officers’ occupational awareness of how to maintain responsive professionalism during local collaboration. Findings illustrate how police officers conceive of themselves as moderators, orchestrators, and mediators guided by occupational awareness of different organizational strains and of demands for responsive professionalism. The Swedish police reform was found to promote officers’ independent engagement in formalized or ‘abstract’ modes of professionalism that, nevertheless, continue to be responsive to local demands.
Source: Culture and Organization
Author: Bertil Rolandsson
Institution: University of Gothenburg
Language: English
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W3203947500