Browsing by Subject "Professionalism"
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Item Antecedents and consequences of occupational ideologies: a comparison of multiple occupational groups.(2012-05) Bechara, John P.As occupations become increasingly employed by large organizations, understanding the role of their occupational ideologies especially their antecedents and their consequences becomes critical to managing them and their work. Occupational ideology refers to ideas occupational members maintain about the nature of work and their identities as occupational practitioners. The ideology I examine is this dissertation is professionalism. Professionalism emphasizes the use of expert knowledge, norms of equality, work autonomy, and self-regulation. In contrast to the literature on occupations that construes professionalism to be shared among members of the same occupation, I argue and show using a longitudinal dataset that members of the same occupation maintain heterogeneous degrees of professionalism which are rooted in their organizational context and specifically in the nature of their work. I propose three central antecedents of professionalism that are characteristic of occupational work namely, task uncertainty, task interdependence, and communication frequency. The results support the predictions that task interdependence and communication frequency increase occupational members' sense of professionalism. Next, I argue and show partial support for the consequences of professionalism on organizational and occupational commitment. While previous work has shown that occupational members can commit to multiple targets and that their commitment to their organization and occupation are positively correlated especially in more "professionally" consistent organizational contexts, I argue and show that although an organization's professionalism has a positive and significant effect on members' commitment to the organization and occupation, a more nuanced account is also required. Specifically, I argue and show partial support for an interactionist account which suggests that occupational members' commitment to the organization and occupation is a function of the similarity between their own sense of professionalism and their organization's professionalism. The results suggest that occupational members that perceive their organization to be upholding their professionalism will be committed to the organization and less committed to the occupation revealing a substitution in identification undocumented in prior work. Finally, the dissertation provides a comparative account of the inter-occupational differences in occupational members' ideologies and their organizational and occupational commitment which sheds light on the occupational subcultures that develop in contemporary organizations.Item Can increasing faculty professionalism raise instructional quality at a Chinese University?(2013-12) Lindgren, JeffreyThe purpose of this study was to determine if increasing faculty professionalism is a viable strategy for raising the quality of instruction at a Chinese university. In this study, increasing faculty professionalism refers to increases in regards to six areas of faculty work: academic freedom, work balance, governance, reward systems, salary, and professional development. A mixed-methods approach was used in this study. 30 faculty and 15 administrators were interviewed using a standardized open-ended approach and 27 faculty and 21 administrators responded to a questionnaire with 26 Likert-type questions. Study findings suggest that faculty and administrators at Guangdong X University agree that instructional quality needs to be raised. In addition, the findings suggest that faculty and administrators at Guangdong X University agree that increasing faculty professionalism may be an effective way to raise the quality of instruction at this university. Also, the findings suggest that this agreement between faculty and administrators at Guangdong X University may indicate an open policy window (Kingdon, 2003) for advancing the strategy of increasing faculty professionalism as a way to raise instructional quality. Finally, policy alternatives are suggested in view of Kingdon's (2003) model.Item Developing a Professionalism Plan(University of Minnesota, College of Pharmacy, 2013) Grice, Gloria R; Monson, Kacie; Pitlick, Jamie; Chereson, Rasma; Duncan, Wendy; Geslani, Gemma; Kilgore, Kimberly; Patel, Puja B; Pautler, HeatherProfessionalism is a way of being which underlies all the responsibilities of a pharmacist and associated general and professional abilities. The Student Affairs Committee was charged with developing a college-wide professionalism plan to meet the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) Standards 15.1 and 23. This plan was developed concurrently with a new curriculum. The plan was developed systematically with the following goals: 1) create a definition of professionalism, 2) determine outcomes of the plan, 3) identify existing components which should be continued and new components to be added, 4) ensure existing and new components are linked to outcomes and 5) develop a continuous assessment process for the plan. The proposed plan consists of curricular, co-curricular and extra-curricular activities designed to help students gain experience in three professionalism pillars: Competence, Connection and Character, as defined by Brown et al in “Taxonomy of Professionalism”. While knowledge and skills will be enhanced, the focus of development will be on student virtues, values and attitudes—that what they do defines who they are. The goal is to help students develop as people and professionals who value the high ideals expected of a pharmacist.Item Framing citizen journalism in mainstream news coverage: a quantitative and qualitative analysis (1999-2012)(2014-08) Hong, Ye JinDue to the public's participation in the journalistic production process a variety of tensions likely exist between established journalism and citizen journalism. Like any occupation with professional objectives, professional journalists continually shield and protect their territory from potential competitors and legacy media try to fortify the privilege and special position of professional journalism. The main goal of this study is to investigate how mainstream journalism responds to the growth of citizen journalism, its participants and the power of citizen journalists' contribution on news content.Reviewing professionalism and framing theory as the theoretical foundations, this dissertation specifically addressed the following objectives in the context of citizen journalism: (1) examine major news frames, topics, and tones; (2) explore representation of citizen news participants and citizen journalism with regard to role and values of professional journalism; (3) identify whether citizen journalism is undermined or professional journalism is legitimized in media coverage. 308 news articles from eight major U.S. newspapers for past fourteen years were analyzed through a mixed-method approach combining quantitative and qualitative analysis. As a result of the content analysis, it appears that professional journalists approved of the positive value of citizen journalism in society and journalism field, and recognized the synergy between traditional journalists and citizen news participants. Mainstream news articles have represented citizen journalism as a valuable phenomenon and a comparatively new phenomenon. The data clearly unveiled that mainstream news coverage included discussions of citizen journalism from a variety of topical perspectives. However, the qualitative textual analysis revealed that mainstream news articles routinely placed citizen journalism and citizen journalists outside the boundaries of professional journalism. Regardless of how citizen news participants were identified, professional journalists distinguished themselves from citizen journalists, effectively helping mainstream reporters to reinforce and legitimize their professional status in society. In addition, by emphasizing harmful outcomes and dangerous side effects of citizen journalism, professional journalists found ways to justify why citizen journalism remains inferior to professional journalism and why professional journalism is still significant in society. Even in news articles with positive tonality, journalists attempted to legitimate their status while downplaying the status of citizen journalism.Item Professionalization of Program Evaluation: A Comparative Mixed Methods Case Study of Canada and the United States(2020-06) Ayoo, SandraProfessionalization of evaluation means different things to different people across the globe. This study explored the professionalization of program evaluation in Canada and the United States of America (US) using sociological models of professionalism as the guiding framework for assessing the level of maturity of program evaluation as a field of professional practice. Five concepts identified by the model were used to develop a professionalism assessment tool for program evaluators (PAToPE) to measure the behavioral attributes of professionalism: professional autonomy, expertise, ethical dispositions, innovation and research, and credentialing. Data for the study were collected using a sequential mixed-methods approach starting with interviews of 27 evaluators and a test of the measurement instrument in an online survey to a random sample of 1,000 American Evaluation Association (AEA) members and 573 Canadian Evaluation Society (CES) members from the 2017 membership directory. The results of the study suggest that credentialing is the major difference between Canada and the US and that Canada is perceived to be more advanced in the professionalization of evaluation than the US. The empirical information also suggests that program evaluators demonstrate professionalism differently by country, place of work, gender, credentialed evaluator status, level of skills, level of education, age, and years of evaluation practice. The study concludes with implications and recommendations for professional associations, evaluation practice, and future studies.