Open access
TRANSFORMATIONS OF PROFESSIONS AND PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY
Barbara KOZIERKIEWICZ1
Transformational Problems and Examples
Publication language: Polish
Journal article
Transformations No. 1-2 (84-85) 2015, Publication date: 6 May 2015
Keywords: new professions, sector of clinical trials, social identity, professional identity
Abstract New professions are being developed as a result of external forces, like new technologies or development of big organizations, or due to internal changes within the professions, like specialization or delegation of work to other, subordinate groups. Today these changes are more frequent than in history which leads to the situation that many employees work in the profession that is not consistent with their education. In Poland less than 50% of the university graduates work in their trained profession. Professional roles are being chosen at the early stages of professional education, before joining any organization, so professional identity can develop as the first social identity related to professional life. After that, on the later stages of the professional career, other occupational and organizational identities can develop based on various work-related categories (organization, working group, co-workers, line manager). This article presents the results of the qualitative study performed on a group of clinical trial employees in Poland. The clinical trials market in Poland was initiated about 20 years ago but its pioneers are still available for research. The goal of the study was to observe the factors that shaped the market leading to the development of a new occupation and to see the impact of these changes on the professional identity.
Akademia Leona Koźmińskiego w Warszawie
E-mail: Barbara_001@interia.pl