The professional and personal values and their revelation through professional doctorates

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the relationship between individual practitioners’ personal values and their developing professional agentic values. It considers how the former might be in tension with the prescribed forms of practice held to be “professional” by professional bodies, warranting membership, and indeed, any licence to practice.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper seeks an understanding of the different personal and collective ontological stances and tensions that practitioners may experience as they progress through their careers, attempting to align their own values with those of the collective values within their profession. It is a conceptual paper.

Findings

The authors explore the ideas through a Heideggerian reading of transdisciplinarity which the authors find helpful.

Research limitations/implications

This is a conceptual paper and my therefore may suffers from lack of empirical evidence which the authors would consider helpful as the next stage of development

Practical implications

Through the lens of an “I” and “we” framework introduced in the paper and the use of a professional doctorate, the authors discuss how a practitioner and profession’s values may be in tension.

Social implications

There may be issues of professional engagement which will impact on the development of the professions themselves.

Originality/value

The authors believe this to be an original approach to understanding professional and personal values in professional doctorates

Citation

Gibbs, P. and Maguire, K. (2016), "The professional and personal values and their revelation through professional doctorates", Higher Education, Skills and Work-Based Learning, Vol. 6 No. 3, pp. 237-248. https://doi.org/10.1108/HESWBL-02-2016-0010