ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns the culture of inauthenticity that has besieged the professions. Speaking of the culture of inauthenticity is perhaps unusual given that our modern era has been referred to as the age of authenticity. The age of authenticity, so goes the argument typically, is an age obsessed with the search for individual self-fulfilment, self-realisation and self-advancement. Four different aspects of this culture were distinguished. In the first aspects, it begins with the question of access to status, wealth and privilege. In second and third aspects it addresses the new accountability regimes under new public management and new managerialism and how these affect professional work and identity. In the fourth and final aspects of the chapter makes brief reference to Alasdair MacIntyre's analysis of the relationship between practices and institutions, highlighting the potential of inauthenticity that arises when institutions lose their critical role as supporters of good practice.
