The Ambiguity of Professional Service Work

Abstract

This chapter opens with questions such as: How can we describe professional service work processes? What is it that is going on when lawyers, teachers, and physicians do what they do on a day-to-day basis? The chapter displays a common assumption about professional service work: that it is, by its nature, ambiguous, and that this inherent ambiguity has profound consequences for how professional service work is organized and managed. It then investigates this assumption and suggests another view — that ambiguity is an outcome of the way in which professional service work is organized, just as much as it is a cause of it. The chapter also elaborates on division of labour, concerning with the ‘detailed division of labour’, that is, the division of labour taking place between workers, in practice, on an everyday basis. It accounts for the ambiguity assumption in professional work, and continues with reflections over the way in which professionals talk about work. The chapter presents different models for professional problem-solving, one traditional with ‘cases’ at the centre, and one with clients at the centre. It also examines a common theme in discussions about professional service work: that it bears great resemblance to craft work and the ethos of craft work.