Introduction

Full and semi-professionals appear to have more in common than their distinction suggests. They experience pressures on the way they do their work, and they feel these pressures have increased. In the preceding chapter Janet Newman showed that increasing pressures on professionals can be explained in two ways. First, existing pressures have exacerbated, and, second, new kinds of pressures have arisen. Her focus on pressures within knowledge-power knots illustrates that these pressures are relative, depending on the perspective that is taken. Whereas some professionals might be troubled by pressures and seek ways to cope, others might be consciously causing pressures or might profit from pressurized professional spaces. Moreover, pressures might be an unavoidable part of professional work – although professionals might still complain if they dislike certain work aspects.

This shows that it is necessary to specify and differentiate when we study what professionals do and how pressures affect outcomes of professional work: what are we talking about? Pressures, for instance, that are emphasized in order to resist policy changes might also be seen as ‘normal’ pressures, inherent to professional work. In addition, pressures might add up and make things unworkable, but they might offer professionals more space to be selective as well. In this chapter we analyze how professionals deal with ‘old’ and ‘new’ pressures on their work, while explaining variation in professional work. Specifying what we know and what we do not know and taking Newman's change narratives one step further, is what we aim at in this chapter. We do so by addressing the following question: Given the variety of tasks full and semi-professionals fulfil, the different degrees of institutionalization of their professions, and their varying personal characteristics, what kinds of pressures on their work, including contemporary pressures, can be observed? And which patterns can be identified in the ways professionals deal with such pressures? In the next section we explore how professionals and their work might vary: which dimensions are relevant for classifying types of professional work? In the third section we distinguish between types of pressures. We will focus on regular constraints on professional work, i.e. constraints on the autonomy of individual professionals, as well as on contemporary or ‘new’ pressures.