The manager is not the boss : an investigation into managing professionals from both within and without the profession

Abstract

Professionals have an inherent expectation of autonomy in their work, an associated lack of respect for both the managerial role and the people who hold managerial positions, and highly specialized knowledge and skills. These characteristics alone make the management of professionals difficult. Add to this the fact that there are an increasing number of professionals being managed by individuals from outside their profession, and the complexity of the managerial role becomes even greater. It is the purpose of this dissertation to examine the management of professionals and to determine if a set of strategies exists that managers can use in order to mitigate the lack of respect that their subordinates afford them. The dissertation consists of a three-study research design. The first study consists of interviews of professionals and their managers, looking for expectations, experiences, and perceptions of managerial effectiveness. A list of strategies was developed through these interviews. The second study is a large scale survey conducted over a diverse set of professionals, designed to validate the strategies and answer questions regarding managers of professionals. The third study consists of a vignette experiment, with participants rating the effectiveness of managers of varying levels of expert power and strategies. The research findings indicate that managers who are members of the profession of their subordinates are more effective than those who are not. A set of four strategies for managing professionals was identified. These strategies are used more often by managers who are members of the profession, and are inherent to professional membership, but are capable of being adopted by managers who are not members of the profession.