Bodies of Knowledge – Transforming an Occupation to a Profession: An exploratory study of Project Management in the United Kingdom.

Abstract

Transforming an Occupation to a Profession: An exploratory study of the project management profession in the United Kingdom Professions, occupations founded on specialist or expert knowledge, provide services society deems sufficiently important to accord them special status. These services are seen as critical to society because they cannot be provided by other occupations. The knowledge upon which professions are founded is generally referred to as its body of knowledge (BOK). While the nature of special knowledge has been investigated, how the BOK is employed during professional formation has not been studied. The purpose of this research was to determine how this key part of the process is used in the professional formation of occupations. This is important since professions consume a significant and increasing share of national resources. Recognising that professional formation is culturally bound, this research focused on an emergent profession in the United Kingdom. The exemplar, the Association for Project Management had recently been award a Royal Charter which can be seen as formal recognition as a profession. This research adopted an interpretive philosophic stance in order to make sense of the process of professional formation. An inductive survey strategy based on semi structured interviews was conducted over two stages. In total, twenty eight semi-structured interviews were conducted online across four stakeholder groups. A six stage thematic analysis was applied to the transcribed interviews using the analysis tool NVivo. The research revealed two pressure groups pressing for professional recognition and identified four stakeholder groups which used APM’s formal BOK in subtly different ways. In addition to the recognised uses of a BOK, the research revealed the use of the BOK to avoid jurisdictional disputes. This which allowed the exemplar association to enlist the support of other professional associations in their pursuit of a Royal Charter which resulted in the successful conclusion of their professional formation. Opportunities for further research are identified.