Evolving Professions: An Institutional Field Approach

Our conceptions of professions vary as a function of two conditions. They are influenced, first, by changes in the composition, structure and behavior of those occupations that we identify by this label; and, second, they are affected by changes in the theoretical lenses we bring to bear on these occupations. I thus embrace a post-positivist conception in which all our scientific analyses involve some combination of elements selected from the “empirical environment” of observations and other combinations of elements that we and our colleagues collectively create in the “metaphysical environment” of assumptions and theoretical models (Alexander 1982). All our conclusions, findings, and scientific “truths” are admixtures of these empirical and metaphysical elements.