The Formation of a Professional Model: Russian Experience from the Western Research Perspective

Abstract

Alexandra Moskovskaya — Associate Professor, Chair for Human Resource Management, National Research University “Higher School of Economics”. Address: 20, Myasnitskaya St., Moscow, 101000, Russian Federation. E-mail: amoskovskaya@hse.ru

This article substantiates the acceptability of variations in a professional model under the influence of various historical, social and economic conditions in the example of recent Soviet and contemporary Russian experience. Descriptions of a quasi-professional Soviet pattern of a ‘professional worker’ and of the present-day emergence of a manager’s profession in the industrial sphere are provided to this effect. By use of these examples of divergence from the professional standard as accepted by the contemporary sociology, the author offers a broader view of the professional model as a universal institutional phenomenon beyond the scope of physicians’ and lawyers’ private practice. The ‘professional model’ in the present text is construed as a sustainable and reproducible system of relations which emerges in specific spheres of labor activity concerning specialized knowledge and skills of workers, providing relative autonomy, as well as a certain set of socioeconomic privileges to a certain professional group under conditions of organizational hierarchy. The latter may be represented by higher income, social status, participation in decision-making process, etc. The relative autonomy of a professional group emerges as soon as professionals appear as a ‘knowledge-holder’ formed through a socially acknowledged system of long-term specialized education, which lends itself as a basis of collective and individual skills. According to the author’s logic, the formation of a professional model is based on the specific types of expert labor that match the prospective shifts in economic development and labor division, on the one hand, as well as to promote social integration and the solution to the most significant social problems, on the other hand.