158 ANALYSING HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
need, professionals take up a specificcalling,career, or vocation.Clients
may not want what the professional holds they need, but the goal is
clients’ empowerment. Code:NeedVoc- Professionalsapply an evergrowing body or store of systematic, special-
ized knowledge and associated normsto cases involving contact with
individuals or organizations. Code:SpTK
3(a). Professions require for entryan extensive multi-year mandatory period
of training. Besides knowledge and understanding of theory, this
involves a period of apprenticeship, or a transition from the status of
novice to that of master, in order to apply skills and norms benignly
to practical problems. 3(b). There is a taxonomy of types of case,
principles, and precedents, and one studies and imitates the master’s
diagnosis, prognosis, and therapy, using the distinctivemode of practi-
cal reasoning called casuistryapplied to judgements in particular cases,
often involving a measure of autonomous discretion. 3(c). Commonly,
diagnosis isguided by client report of an issue. (In emergency care this
is set aside, but application of scientific truth in normal consulta-
tions cannot start till the patient/client tells the professional what the
issue/problem is, and/or where it hurts.) Code:TrCaCID
4(a). Given criteria 1–3, an authoritative self-governing institutional body,
drawn from practitioner ranks,self-administers a grant of author-
ity/licence/rightto practitioners. Professionals usually do their own
peer assessment. 4(b). The inducteesthereafter become authoritative
and autonomous experts,with 4(c).indirect social government cooper-
ation and oversight of duty compliancevested in society’s representa-
tives. Once inducted, professionals are creditedwithauthority to speak
on relevant social matters of importance (Battin et al. 1989). Since
the technical nature of the work and expense precludes every citizen
receiving training, some degree of 4(d).social trust in a ruling expert
subgroup, the professional body, is necessary, to administer their grant
of authority. They are not expected or required to make money for the
body. Code:Selfad/Auth - The grant of authority orlicenceis conditional on apublic test (exami-
nation) of expertiseof some sort. Code:Exam - Professions are ‘democratic brother/sister-hoods’socially approved as
quasi-monopoliesor quasi-guilds/solidarities. They havethe power to
limit the number of trainees.Unlicensed competition is discouraged,
and government may intervene to assure this, through immigration
policy (Flexner and Greenwood, cited in Lawrence 1999: 72–3).The
charges against them of being closed shops, designed to drive up costs,
can be answered to the extent that there is a case for limiting the