Apologies for cross-posting (and previously failing to inlcude text)
http://www.oxfordjournals.org/our_journals/jpo/resource/jpo-special%20issue-flyer-%20final.pdf
Journal of Professions and Organization
http://jpo.oxfordjournals.org/
Special issue: `Professions and technology’
Call for papers
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Editors
· Mark Exworthy, University of Birmingham, UK [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
· Chris Smith, Royal Holloway University of London, UK [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
· Jose-Rodrigo Cordoba-Pachon, Royal Holloway University of London, UK [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Donald Light, Rowan University; Visiting researcher, Princeton University, USA [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
The dynamic between professionals and technology has lain at the heart of profound changes to professions, the organisations in which they work and the users of professional services over the past few decades and worldwide. These changes have generated widespread academic inquiry across many disciplines such as sociology, information systems, political science and organization studies, among others.
Technology, here, is taken to refer to the broad set of information systems (IS) and information communication technologies (ICTs), associated with but not limited to the internet, mobile technology and the miniaturisation of computing. Technology is also about ideas, material context and language – the claims for transformation that generally accompany technological change regardless of actual empirical and perceived effects. However defined, technology can be both disruptive for professions as well as capable of reinforcing or re-creating professional projects. New forms of occupational practice are emerging from the threats and opportunities signalled by the interaction between professions and technology. For example, technology enables networking and `boundary-spanning’ that cut across traditional professional domains. While at the same time, new professional projects appear through the process of occupational creation involved in the management of technological change. For users, technology can create new forms of interaction in ways which might enhance or restore trust in professions. The accumulation, storage, codification and dissemination of new forms of knowledge (aided by technology) will inevitably shape user and professional responses. Professions’ ability to preserve ambiguity of esoteric knowledge and maintain their autonomy may be threatened by new forms of neo-bureaucratic controls, aided by technologies of calculation, surveillance or social media.
This special issue invites contributions that take a comparative approach to understanding and explaining the intersection between professions and technology. Here, comparative perspectives have different (and possibly reinforcing) meanings:
· Comparisons between professions might highlight the trajectory of professional projects over time.
· The projects of para-professionals might also reveal insights into how technology is transforming the process of professionalisation and presenting threats to `established’ professions.
· Professions, can be judged comparatively as occupying an ambiguous position as `third logic’ between the state and the market. Across public, private and third sectors, professions exhibit tensions with jurisdictional and market imperatives which may be amplified or undermined by technology.
· National socio-political cultures have often been seen as dominant forces for the production of professions within each country. However, technology offers the opportunity to transcend such national boundaries, undermining jurisdictional powers and destabilising place and space. Professional regulation might become more problematic as a result.
This special issue of the Journal of Professions and Organization seeks papers which review and debate perspectives of this intersection. We welcome contributions which take comparative (cross-national, cross-disciplinary and inter/multi-professional) approaches, as well as theoretical and empirical perspectives. Topics can be on, for example:
· Professions of and with IS/ICTs;
· User-professional interactions and implications for organisations;
· The impact of the technology and the market on ‘organisational professions’ such as engineers and HR professions;
· The different impacts of ICTs on professions across national borders;
· The growth of large professional service organisations (such as in Accounting and Law) with concentrated technological capability and the impact these have on professional autonomy;
· The role of technology in facilitating the transformation of public sector professions
· Individual, organisational and networking professions and professionalism
Submit your paper via: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jpo
Deadlines for full papers: 1 June 2015. (Publication is expected in 2016).
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