Conceptions of Professionalism

Book excerpt: In Conceptions of Professionalism, Ken Bruce and Abdullahi Ahmed present the results of research into understanding what professionalism means to individuals who are CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNERTM professionals and how they conceive of acting professionally. Financial planning is establishing itself as a relatively new, emerging profession and an understanding of how its members experience professionalism provides insights that will help those responsible across the international financial planning community to establish relevant, accurate and meaningful professional standards for financial planners. The authors employ the relatively new research methodology of phenomenography, which enables them to describe the qualitatively different ways in which people understand or experience a phenomenon. This particularly lends itself to the study of a concept such as professionalism. This study gives voice to the financial planners represented in the research and will inform standard setting bodies seeking to understand professionalism through the eyes of the professionals themselves. What the research reveals about the concept of professionalism itself will be of value to those whose interests lie beyond the world of financial planning, and the application of the methodology used in the study will inform researchers contemplating phenomenographical studies elsewhere.