Professional scaling work: How professional segments claim new jurisdictions in a world of trans-local connections
Associate Professors Anders Blok and Inge Kryger Pedersen have contributed the article 'Professional scaling work: How professional segments claim new jurisdictions in a world of trans-local connections' to the journal International Sociology.
The article is written in collaboration with Assistant Professor Marie Leth Meilvang (corresponding author) and Teaching Associate Professor Maria Duclos Lindstrøm.
The literature on professions, drawing on both sociological and management approaches, has recently turned its focus to the transnational scale. In the article, building on Andrew Abbott’s work on professional jurisdictions, the authors analyse the way transnational resources come to play a role in local professional claims-making and work practices in the inter-professional struggle over jurisdiction.
Comparing case studies set in Denmark into three emerging professional jurisdictions, their analysis shows that professional segments claiming new work tasks engage actively in scaling work that attempts to ‘rescale’ the jurisdiction to fit their own professional projects and claims.
Results demonstrate that scaling practices consist of three different ways professionals invest in transnational resources: organisational avatars, new work regulations and prescriptions, and symbolic legitimacy. These ways in which professionals transform transnational resources into claims used in local professionals’ situations result in different outcomes for the professional segments involved.
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The article is published in volume 37, issue 4 of International Sociology: Professional scaling work: How professional segments claim new jurisdictions in a world of trans-local connections
The article is written in connection with the project 'Global challenges, local solutions? Rethinking professional work in a transnational world', which is supported by Independent Research Fund Denmark.