Reconstructing profession and management: primary care professionals in Finland

This paper is an empirical contribution to the ongoing debate about the nature of contemporary professionalism. Drawing on a study of an extensive re-organisation of primary health care services in Finland, we show how new forms of professionalism are manifest among health care professionals. We draw on Nordegraaf's theory of 'organising professionalism' as the main framework for our analysis. We will show how organising professionalism is actually achieved by health professionals in a specific structural and policy context. We show that two main factors in how organising professional work is accomplished are the role of space and place, and the reconstruction of patients as consumers. Space and place has not been extensively considered hitherto in this context, and the idea that patients are consumers has generally been held to be inimical to the professions.