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Professional associations and the management of expertise

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The Management of Expertise

Part of the book series: Management, Work and Organisations ((MWO))

Abstract

This chapter highlights two factors that give the management of expertise its contemporary significance. The first is the increasingly rapid diffusion and turnover of technological innovations in industry. Although it seems trite to begin with this oft-stated fact, the associated proliferation of specialist knowledges poses important new demands on management while creating niches for the formation of expertise. Secondly, the empirical study reported here shows the critical role of the professional networks that spring up around technological innovations; ostensibly to supply the needs of management but simultaneously promoting particular bodies of expertise in doing so. Such networks defy easy classification into the standard categories of professional formation. Their knowledge base is specialised and mundane, even esoteric, and exerts little ‘disciplinary’ force (Foucault, 1979). Nor do they convey much of the mystique associated with the classical professions. Indeed, part of their success is the normative espousal of a demystifying technical rationality. In this context their official role is usually defined as the disinterested transmission of neutral techniques through the liberal connectivity of the marketplace.

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Authors
  1. Jacky Swan
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Warwick Business School, UK

    Harry Scarbrough (Lecturer in Industrial Relations and Organizational Behaviour) (Lecturer in Industrial Relations and Organizational Behaviour)

Copyright information

© 1996 Harry Scarbrough

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Swan, J. (1996). Professional associations and the management of expertise. In: Scarbrough, H. (eds) The Management of Expertise. Management, Work and Organisations. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24394-5_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24394-5_6

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-333-56870-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-349-24394-5

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