Professionalism and OD: The Past, the Present, and Future Scenarios

Organization Development Journal, Fall 2006 by Kulick, Orisha A

Abstract

This article reviews the history of how occupations become professions. It also reports on the shifting power and alliances between capitalism, government, the professions and consumers. Organization development practitioners are encouraged to consider these concepts in their desire to achieve global professional status for O.D., especially with regard to the professional requirement for altruistic motivation and action.

Theory and Application: How Occupations Move to Become Professions

Professionalism has been defined as "the institutional circumstances in which the members of occupations rather than consumers or managers control work" (Freidson, 2001, p. 12). The theoretical views of sociologists Freidson (2001) and Krause (1996) and Flexner (2001), an educator, all of whom have addressed the topic of professionalism as it pertains to entire occupational groups are discussed below. Wilensky's (1964, 1980) and Torres' (1991) contributions to the study of occupational movement into and out of professional status were considered in an earlier publication (Weidner & Kulick, 1999). The rise and fall of the American medical profession's power is offered as an example of the ongoing shift in the power struggle that occurs between the professions, government, and capitalism. A concern that O.D. professionals might consider is whether the circumstances around being a profession will be desirable or more burdensome if and when the field of O.D. becomes more mature. An even greater concern is the need for O.D. practitioners to demonstrate altruistic action in their work. A discussion for further exploration is provided, which demonstrates how O.D. can help doctors to deliver and consumers to receive health care that places the consumer's interest above that of the profit motive (capitalism) and cost-cutting (the interest of government).

Abraham Flexner

Flexner's unique contribution to professionalism was to promote medical education reform as a pubic health measure by arguing that the business ethic that governed profit medical schools was incompatible with the progressive academic values necessary for socially useful medical education. For decades, physicians had promoted medical education reform as a means to increase professional status. Flexner declared that the exploitation of medical education for profit was inconsistent with the social aspects of medical practice. By the 1930's, the combined efforts of state licensing boards, philanthropic foundations, and the American Medical Association's (AMA) Council on Medical Education resulted in the closing of America's for-profit medical schools and the standardization of the laboratory and hospital-based research medical university model that Flexner advocated (Beck, 2004).

Flexner outlined six criteria for professional status in an essay entitled "Is Social Work a Profession?" which was first published in 1915 and more recently republished (Flexner, 2001). Flexner's six criteria for professional status are applied to organization development below.

1. Involve essentially intellectual operations with large individual responsibility.

Organization development does involve essentially intellectual operations because work in the field requires the application of theory to factual circumstances. Whether all O.D. practitioners are given large individual responsibility, as the second aspect of this criterion requires, is more questionable.

2. Derive their raw material from science and learning.

According to Flexner (2001, p. 164), "A profession needs in these days a form of expression and record that is scientific rather than journalistic in character." Applying this criterion to organization development, it seems that O.D. must have its own high quality scientific literature which supports practice versus borrowing theoretical scientific evidence support from other disciplines such as the social sciences. O.D. would benefit from a larger volume of its own high quality scientifically-based literature.

3. Work up the raw material to a practical and definite end (specificity in aim).

The general public, including many people who work in organizations, have very little idea of what services O.D. practitioners provide in their work. This circumstance suggests that there is limited societal understanding of O.D.'s "practical and definite end" as required by Flexner's third criterion.

4. Possess an organized and educationally communicable technique.

At the time that Flexner applied criterion four to social work in 1915, social work failed to fulfill this criterion. In 1952, the Council on Social Work Education was formed (Murray, 1997). The AMA had formed the Council on Medical Education in 1904 (Beck, 2004).

I would suggest that organization development is currently experiencing challenges within O.D. education similar to the challenges that medicine and social work experienced in their developmental progress toward professional status. A next step forward toward professional status for O.D. would be the formation of a Council on O.D. Education.