Sociology Essays

Sociology Essays: Differences Between Managers and Professional

What kind of divisions, if any, are there between professionals and managers?
You are expected to refer to case studies of particular professions to illustrate your arguments.

The question of potential divides between professionals and managers has become more prominent in recent decades, due to the changing structures of professional and bureaucratic organisations. David Brock et al are currently writing a paper entitled:‘The changing professional organisation; towards new Archetypes and Typology.’ Brock draws attention to the ease with which professional organisations could once be understood. They cite Mintzberg’s delineation of the professional bureaucracy and Greenwood et al’s professional partnership (p²) model as reflecting the key features of professional organisations, where professionals were the operators, but also in managerial control. However, managerial structures are now forming part of professional processes. For example, hospitals are experiencing changes to their original organisational structures.

Over the course of this essay, an attempt will be made to identify any divisions that may exist between professionals and managers. In order to determine how significant these divisions are, it is also necessary to consider the similarities between professionals and managers. Since the similarities between professionals and managers are not the focus of this essay, they will not be considered in full. However, there is a summary of some similarities between professionals and managers in Section ‘A’ of the Appendix. Following a discussion of the divisions between professionals and managers, a conclusion will be drawn which shall hopefully help to determine how many divisions there actually are between them, and how these divisions may affect the new organisational structures in which they have to work together.

Professionals and managers have been grouped together in various ways over the years. Goldthorpe, for example, terms them as the ‘service class.’ Gouldner terms them the ‘New Class.’ Grouping them together in such a way is related to problems in defining the ‘middle class,’ simply because it is ‘in the middle.’ Savage et al have cited three ways of dealing with the problem of defining the middle classes, the third of which is: “to explore how the middle classes might actually be social classes in their own right. This has, in British work, centred around discussion concerning the argument that some groups within the middle class can best be seen as a ‘service class.’” The concept of ‘social classes’ has been explained in Section ‘C’ of the Appendix. Although professionals and managers have been grouped together by various people, there are various divisions to be found between them. As Kornhauser has emphasised in Scott (in Vollmer): To examine professionals in bureaucracies is to examine the “relation between two institutions, not merely between organisations and individuals.”
Scott writes:

“Two institutions are involved in the relation between professionals and bureaucracies. Furthermore, it is important to understand that the two systems are based on fundamentally different principles.” Some of the divisions that can be found between professionals and managers shall now be highlighted.

Sociology Essays

• Shame Punishments
• Shaming Offenders
• Sexuality and Society
• Criminology, Women and Crime, Feminist Theorie
• Welfare Regimes
• New Social Movements
• Racism

• Social Psychology
• Healthcare systems, Western Values
• Differences Between Managers and Professional
• Zionism and Israel
• Social Constructionism, Critical Realism
• Identity and Masculinity
• Theories Of Social Movements

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