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Are Professions Still Needed in Industrial Research and Development Work?

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Are Professions Still Needed in Industrial Research and Development Work?

This thesis is an ethnographic study that aims at understanding the role of professions in the contemporary work life as it appears in the Research and Development (R&D) departments of industrial companies in Finland. The focus is on companies that operate globally and sell material products, and in addition maybe also services. The material used in the research consists of 29 interviews, field notes based on 2 years of part time work in an R&D department, seminar presentations related to professions under research as well as written material, like trade magazines and web-pages.

The first part of the thesis describes the R&D department as a workplace and explains the theoretical orientation of the thesis. It is based on a moderate constructionist view on social phenomena. The theoretical frame used in this thesis is simply the notion of community and communality and the nature of their changes. ‘Real’ communities where the whole system of meanings is shared are distinguished from ‘imagined’ communities that create communality as based on only partially shared system of meanings. In imagined communities, the system of meanings is often a product of mediated interaction instead of face-to-face discussions. Good examples are printed media and the Internet.

The second part of the research compares three professions that are common in the R&D – environment, namely engineers, economists and industrial designers. The goal is to find the most common features in each of the professions relevant for the research, general enough to allow the ignorance of differences on an individual or even a faculty level, but still so distinct that they can be used for distinguishing between professions. A suitable level of analysis was found by concentrating on professions that are represented by trade unions and universities. The logic behind this is the idea that socialization in certain professions takes place during education and it is maintained by trade unions. Therefore, those institutions are a good source for finding the characteristics of each profession.

The third part of the research analyses daily work in R&D – departments and the roles professions play in them today. The first finding is that there are three types of organizations in R&D that all give professionalism a different role. A specialist organization sees professionalism as the key element in defining the community. In such an organization, people with a similar professional education work together, often in common laboratories or other facilities that create the physical environment. In a project organization, work is organized around a certain task and the work group consists of all professions needed for completing the task. The profession is the reason for belonging to the group and has a distinguishing role regardless of the fact that the group itself is multiprofessional. In a transprofessional organization, the boundaries of the professions are blurred and not deliberately maintained. The group is oriented towards creative results and flexibility, with regards to professional or cultural boundaries, is appreciated.

The conclusion of this thesis is that specialist organizations are useful when aiming at superior efficiency or cutting edge scientific results. When R&D comes close to customers, time schedules become more important and project work offers better tools for developing commercial products in a controlled fashion. In that sense, the ability to work in projects is an add-on to professional skills. When aiming at radical innovations and shaping the market instead of just adapting to it, the transprofessional approach is required. Transprofessional skills can also be seen as an add-on to other professional skills, including ability to work in projects.

As a recommendation for the skill base in the early phases of R&D, three competence teams are recommended. The first would concentrate on understanding the world and requirements of the customers and users, the second would aim at understanding the technology and strengths of the company and the third group would be aware of market issues, like market size, cost structures, price levels and so forth.

Key words: work place ethnography, industrial design, engineering, economics, transprofessional, professions, multicultural, multidisciplinar, R&D, reserch and develeopment, industry, technology, product design, communities

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