Professionalism in Public Management

Abstract

Public management depends on professionalism. Street-level workers such as police officers, judges, teachers, medical doctors, nurses and social workers, all working with clients and implementing policies, belong to well-established professional domains. Public services such as schools, hospitals, police forces and law courts, all generating public value, are professional organizations. Public managers moreover are trying to professionalize their own work and leadership. In this entry, we focus on the professional logic that pervades street-level work, public services and their management. Such a logic goes beyond organizational perspectives and (vertical) relations between politics, policies, managers, street-level workers and citizens. It highlights (horizontal) relations between professional workers, with strong occupational identities, loyalties, attitudes and acts, aimed at guarding and applying knowledge, expertise, skills and values. We explore the basics of professionalism and discuss its key manifestations. We discuss how public professionals are managed, professional public services are modernized, and public managers are professionalizing.