Managerialism as a professionalising catalyst for the front-line practitioner community of New Zealand's Department of Conservation
Abstract
Since 1984, public service occupations in New Zealand have been subordinated to the
over-determined bureaucratic structures of contemporary managerialism. The reactions
of front-line public servants to New Management’s unfamiliar ‘market-place’ imperatives
and the concomitant loss of occupational autonomy have received very little
rigorous qualitative analysis. This study addresses that shortfall, taking as its cue a key
question in the sociology of ‘profession’—what arouses or subdues the inclination of
bureaucratised occupations to professionalise as a means of reclaiming autonomy? It
explains the nature and meaning of strategies adopted by front-line practitioners in
New Zealand’s Department of Conservation (DOC) to defend their marginalised work
conventions and collegial culture. Symbolic interactionist analysis shows that profoundly
personal values and beliefs connect vocationally motivated practitioners with
their ‘mission’ (to conserve natural and cultural heritage). These powerful intuitive
connections play a crucial role in subduing interest in resistance and organised strategic
action, principally by converting conservation labour into the pursuit of personal
fulfilment. Practitioners respond to managerial intrusions on their core work (the
source of their fulfilment) by defending these personal connections rather than group
interests. As a result of this introversion, perceptions of ‘community’ and occupational
identity are disorganised and become a further reason for inaction. Practitioners resolve
the conflict between self-interested pursuit of fulfilment and the altruistic goals
of conservation by negotiating an unspoken bargain with DOC’s authority structures.
The ‘pay-offs’ for deferral to managerial authority win the space to pursue fulfilment
through immersion and conspicuous achievement in work, obviating the need for
more concerted defensive action. Accordingly, managerialism has not acted as a professionalising
catalyst for this group.
NB: The abstract has been revised by the author in the electronic version of this thesis, since the print edition was published.
