Development of hybrid professionalism: street-level managers’ work and the enabling conditions of public reform
Eric Martin Alexander Berit, Tone Alm Andreassen and Knut Fossestøl has published a new article in Public Management Review.
Development of hybrid professionalism: street-level managers’ work and the enabling conditions of public reform
Breit, Eric Martin Alexander; Andreassen, Tone Alm; Fossestøl, Knut
https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2022.2095004
Abstract
This paper examines the role of street-level managers in the development of hybrid professionalism. Based on a longitudinal analysis of an organisational reform, we highlight the work of street-level managers in promoting a hybrid ‘social work-like’ professionalism to reconcile social work professionalism with managerial bureaucracy. We highlight four managerial activities—organisational design, discursive reconstruction, R&D project mobilisation and legitimisation in reform documents—and connect these to enabling and constraining conditions in the reform. Overall, we found that the development of hybrid professionalism is contingent on enabling conditions providing material and discursive resources that proactive managers can employ to transform professionalism.