The Social Worker as Transdisciplinary Professional: A Reflective Account

The transdisciplinary key worker model requires early childhood intervention professionals to make radical adjustment in their respective scopes of knowledge and practice. Focused on the author’s brief experience in a key worker role, the article highlights challenges and contradictions that arise when health and welfare professionals are expected not only to exchange knowledge, skills, and expertise, but also to perform each other’s work. Two contextual, reflective accounts of the reasons why social workers should be cautious in task transfers in transdisciplinary teams are given. The article renews support for social workers playing professionally appropriate roles in early childhood intervention teams in ways that can protect best service delivery to children with disability and their families.     

Are we there yet? En route to professionalism

The debate on the professional status of Communication Management/Public relations¹ has been high on the worldwide agenda for decades. While previous research has focused on the criteria for professionalism in this field, practitioners and academics often question the efforts of professional associations to adequately address the issue of implementing systems to facilitate professional status. The emergence of the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management (GA) as an umbrella body for various regional professional associations, as well as the increased emphasis on regulation, standards and governance in all spheres of the global business environment, have led to renewed questions about global efforts to achieve professional status for this field. This study focused on the goals and actions of member associations of the GA in relation to the question of professional status. In order to understand the current state of affairs an exploratory qualitative approach was followed in which member associations were surveyed and their websites reviewed. The fact that fewer than half of the 27 member associations responded to the survey suggests that a study about this matter is not deemed particularly important and/or that the issue of professional status is not widely pursued. However, the associations that participated in this study agree that professional status is important. The study has also found that many similarities exist across continents in terms of the mechanisms utilized to achieve professional status. Codes of ethics, contributions to a body of the knowledge and the provision of professional training opportunities are regarded as quite important while divergent viewpoints exist in relation to issues like accreditation and a standardized tertiary curriculum.     

Assessing the value of state legislative experience and legislative professionalism in national election performance, 1974–2010

State legislative experience and chamber professionalism have been shown to benefit state legislators as they decide and prepare to run for national office in American Congressional elections. Yet, what are the effects of these two factors on national election performance? I test the implications from the literature that state legislative experience and chamber professionalism should impact national election outcomes on all two-party contested elections from 1974 to 2010. I find that state legislative experience enhances candidates’ vote shares, though differently for different candidates. Yet, surprisingly professionalism plays no moderating role. Such effects present at the earlier stages of elections wash out as elections come to a close.     

Vietnamese public relations practitioners: Perceptions of an emerging field

Our exploratory research into contemporary PR practice in Vietnam is underpinned by 12 semi-structured interviews with senior Vietnamese PR executives from various agencies. We selectively use professionalism as an underlying theoretical framework to explore key areas of PR as a profession in Vietnam by considering the impact of environmental variables such as culture and the media system. This paper provides a current snapshot of how an industry introduced by Western multinational corporations has adapted to the Vietnamese context.     

Accredited vs. non-accredited: The polarization of practitioners in the public relations profession

Characteristics of a profession include standardized education grounded in a theory-based body of knowledge, professional associations, codes of ethics, accountability and public recognition, as well as accreditation or certification. This study found that accredited and non-accredited practitioners differ significantly on a range of demographic and job-related variables, including gender, age, years of experience, education levels, employing organization type, reporting relationships, professional competencies, and salary levels. This apparent polarization of practitioners cannot be beneficial for public relations as the field continues to strive toward professionalism.     

Civicness in Organizations: A Reflection on the Relationship Between Professionals and Managers

As they deliver services, organizations have to deal with conflicts over competing and sometimes irreconcilable values, especially at a time when they are facing competitive pressure and diminishing resources. The civicness of organizations expresses itself in how they enable positive interaction over such conflicts between their members. This paper focuses specifically on the relationship between professionals and their managers. By infusing social behaviour with civil values, organizations can contribute to a wider culture of citizenship.     

Examining the expertise,experience, and expedience of crisis consultants in Singapore

By most accounts, crisis preparedness in organizations globally has been appalling (0035 and 0250). The situation is no different in Singapore (Wu & Dai, 2001). With crisis expertise often lacking from within organizations, many resort to engaging public relations (PR) agencies to help. This study, which is inspired by Frandsen and Johansen's (2008) study in Denmark, aims to evaluate the contributions of consultants from PR agencies. Adapting indicators to assess professionalism proposed by Lages and Simkin (2003) and Sallot, Cameron and Lariscy (1997) and integrating them with variables from the contingency theory (Pang, Jin, & Cameron, 2010), this study seeks to examine: (1) the level of expertise of consultants in offering crisis management consultancy; (2) the level of experience of consultants offering crisis management consultancy; and (3) the value and expedience of the consultancy services offered. Findings showed that agencies in Singapore hired consultants based on skills such as writing, speaking and ability to manage the media. For some, lack of direct experience was compensated by in-house training. International agencies appeared to have an advantage over the local agencies by virtue of their access to expertise and knowledge from their international network. However, as the majority of agencies had only managed few crises, it was difficult to assess the value these consultants added. Studies examining consultants in PR agencies are rare. It is hoped this study would trigger research around the world.     

Professionals without a profession? Redesigning case management in Dutch local welfare agencies

This article explores the new roles of frontline workers in Dutch local welfare agencies against the background of recent active welfare state reforms, with a specific focus on frontline workers involved in activating social assistance recipients. The results presented in the article come from case studies in four local welfare agencies. The article investigates how active welfare state reforms have influenced the room for discretion of frontline workers, how discretion is managed in local welfare agencies, and how frontline workers cope with discretion. The article argues that the discretion of activation by frontline workers has increased significantly. The research results show a clear though not unambiguous shift from a bureaucratic towards a more professional treatment of frontline workers, combined with attempts to introduce a more performance oriented style of management. However, given the low level of institutionalisation of the profession of activation work, activation frontline workers still seem to be professionals without a profession. This not only makes activation work a rather individual project, it also entails risks for clients for whom activation services may become unpredictable and lacking in transparency.     

Emotional intelligence and public relations: An empirical review

Since the 1990s, the concept of emotional intelligence has garnered growing popular and scholarly attention in the past several decades. Emotional intelligence is generally defined as one’s ability to recognize one’s own emotions, regulate them, recognize others’ emotions, and manage social relationships and is proposed to yield various desirable outcomes for organizations. This study provides a critical and comprehensive review of empirical studies on the role of emotional intelligence in various domains of public relations practice. Findings reveal that existing research has focused mostly on emotional intelligence as a competency vital to effective leadership and employee communication in organizations. Considerable research has also examined emotional intelligence as a necessity for effective crisis management and communication. This study calls for investigating the role of emotional intelligence in different areas of public relations such as media relations and community relations, for improved measurement and methodological pluralism in future research, for EI-based training for future public relations leaders, and for an EI model of professionalism in public relations education.