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How and Why Management Has Not Become a Profession

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Professionalizing Leadership

Abstract

Although many promote the professionalization of business management, most scholars seem to agree that management currently cannot be labelled a profession, despite disagreement over explanations and the contested nature of what constitutes a profession. Our contention is that management does not qualify as a profession, regardless of the various definitions that exist. In general, managerial elites have not succeeded either to achieve closure over, or institutionalize, management as an occupational field with distinct knowledge and qualification criteria. We illustrate these challenges through a historical case study on three waves of attempts to professionalize top management in Norway. These trends indicate how difficult it is to create an integrated management profession, and justify authority by pointing to the skills and knowledge related to general management.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    From 5000 MBA students in 1960 to 200.000 in 1995 in the U.S. (Locke 1989, p. 162, 1996, p. 28). Approximately 150 000 institutions now provide business degrees globally (Engwall et al. 2016, p. 223).

  2. 2.

    The Marshall aid was a large-scale American aid program in order to help Europe rebuild its industries after Second World War.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Humanities, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Haldor Byrkjeflot

  2. Center for the Study of Professions (SPS), Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway

    Haldor Byrkjeflot

  3. Department of Law and Governance, BI Norwegian Business School, Oslo, Norway

    Pål Nygaard

Authors
  1. Haldor Byrkjeflot
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  2. Pål Nygaard
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Nord University, Bodø, Norway

    Anders Örtenblad

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Byrkjeflot, H., Nygaard, P. (2018). How and Why Management Has Not Become a Profession. In: Örtenblad, A. (eds) Professionalizing Leadership. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71785-2_3

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