The construction of occupational professionalism among business rescue practitioners supplying professional bodies.

Abstract

The study aimed to explore the construction of professionalism in a multiple professional bodies (MPB) landscape in South Africa (SA) and demonstrate how this construction can be used to enhance a professional accreditation regime. Professional accreditation has become a pre-requisite for business rescue practitioners (BRPs). The Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) licensing is linked to multiple professional bodies’ knowledge and practices but are not generic. This study was guided by one key question: How do PBs providing BRPs construct professionalism, and to what extent can the existing construction of professionalism facilitate the development of a professional accreditation regime? A qualitative research design used required research to use four consecutive steps, namely (a) interviewing member services managers at four professional bodies (PBs); (b) systematic content analysis of codes of professional conduct and policy statements to identify constituent professionalism notions; (c) a systematic search of the literature to identify notions of professionalism mentioned in definitions and explanations of the construct; and (d) analysis of notions of professionalism using the constant comparison procedure to reveal key themes. A total of 90 separate notions of professionalism were identified in the 192 scholarly papers included in our study. The identified theme within business rescue practitioner (BRP) professionalism (emphasising relational aspects) points to practitioner dealings with (i) clients (business rescue candidates); (ii) government and others; (iii) the PB; and (iv) oneself to gain the essence of occupation. There is fragmentation between the constructed conceptualisations of professionalism among PBs, leading to an incoherent and inconsistent expert accreditation regime. The results from these steps were used to advance a programmatic framework to construct professionalism in an MPB landscape and a future research agenda