ABSTRACT
The notions of professionalism and professionalisation can be of great significance to the spokesmen for occupational groupings. They appear to be a valuable resource which is available to those concerned to represent and further the interests of any grouping of people who operate within a sphere of work where there is sufficient specialisation to create a potential coincidence of interest centring on the way the work is performed and the rewards which can accrue from that performance. 1 Personnel management is being looked at in this study as an occupational grouping and it has been shown that both the history of the occupation and the structural problems which underlie it, given the nature of the tasks and the organisational positions with which its members are concerned, are such that a potential common interest can be seen to exist. The previous chapter has demonstrated some of the ways in which the individual practitioner copes with what can be seen from the outside as problems of ambivalence and contradiction. Adjustment and accommodation to situational exigencies, combined with the dynamic or processual nature of individual orientations, are central to that analysis. But, in so far as personnel practitioners face similar or shared problems, we can see a common objective (potential) interest around which a coalition of interest or social group might form. Such a group would operate to protect or further the interests of its members. The extent to which an occupational grouping has developed, converting an objective into a subjective interest and making use of the readily available concept and strategy of professionalism is the concern of this chapter.
