Development of hybrid professionalism: street-level managers’ work and the enabling conditions of public reform

Abstract

This paper examines the role of street-level managers in the development of hybrid professionalism. Based on a longitudinal analysis of an organisational reform, we highlight the work of street-level managers in promoting a hybrid ‘social work-like’ professionalism to reconcile social work professionalism with managerial bureaucracy. We highlight four managerial activities—organisational design, discursive reconstruction, R&D project mobilisation and legitimisation in reform documents—and connect these to enabling and constraining conditions in the reform. Overall, we found that the development of hybrid professionalism is contingent on enabling conditions providing material and discursive resources that proactive managers can employ to transform professionalism.