Gender, diversity and intersectionality in professions and potential professions: analytical, historical and contemporary perspectives

This chapter reviews the models and explains the distinctive form of design characteristics of professional firms, centring on the professional partnership. It also addresses the ways in which these are changing, and looks at new ideas for the analysis of restructuring, including the impact of new forms on the status and work of professionals. Early work by Scott suggested two models of professional structuring. One, the autonomous professional organization, was what has essentially come to be called the professional organization or the professional service firm as it is where professionals design and manage the organization. The heteronomous professional organization is one where professionals perform the core service but are subordinate to a managerial system. This model was taken further and systematized by Mintzberg with his idea of the professional bureaucracy. The introduction of new organizational forms and business models introduces a series of questions about governance, organizational form, processes of organizational change and new practices.