Organizational studies of professions have mainly considered episodes of jurisdictional contestation initiated by regulators and managers ( , (). Organization Contra Organizations: Professions and Organizational Change in the United Kingdom. Organization Studies, 17(4). 599–621. https://doi.org/10.1177/017084069601700403 ; & , & (). Managing Expert Knowledge: Organizational Challenges and Managerial Futures for the UK Medical Profession. Organization Studies, 30(7). 755–778. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840609104819 ) . Our paper theorizes efforts from social movements to bring individual clients into collective action to alter the boundaries and content of a profession’s work. The model expands relational understandings of jurisdictional control as grounded in how a profession relates to its clientele ( & , & (). The Role of Discernment and Modulation in Enacting Occupational Values: How Career Advising Professionals Navigate Tensions with Clients. Retrieved from http://journals.aom.org/doi/full/10.5465/amj.2020.1014 ; , (). Professional Authority. InEyal, G. & Medvetz, T. (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Expertise and Democratic Politics. (1, pp. 453–C20P88). Oxford University Press. Retrieved from https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/45892/chapter/403307973 ; , (). How Professionals Construct Moral Authority: Expanding Boundaries of Expert Authority in Stem Cell Science. Administrative Science Quarterly, 66(4). 989–1036. https://doi.org/10.1177/00018392211011441 ; , (). The crisis of expertise. Polity. ) . By foregrounding how jurisdictional control depends on clients’ trust in a profession’s expert knowledge and attachment to it as a collective actor, we present continuity in jurisdictional control as an ongoing achievement that is imperiled by contestation from a client-led social movement, thus shedding new light on existing literature focused on regulators and managers.

Notable similarities and differences become apparent when episodes of contestation by regulators and managers are compared with those by client-led social movements. On one hand, they are similar because, in both cases, the jurisdictional control of a profession is disrupted by a collective actor and, as a result, arrangements in a work domain may be altered. Also, in both cases the change project sought by the collective actor initiating the episode is likely to be resisted by the contested profession ( , & al., , , , , & (). Boundary Work among Groups, Occupations, and Organizations: From Cartography to Process. Academy of Management Annals, 13(2). 704–736. https://doi.org/10.5465/annals.2017.0089 ) . On the other hand, they are different because contestation by regulators and managers produces a struggle between high-status actors wielding distinct forms of formal authority, whereas contestation by a social movement produces a struggle between a high-status actor with formal authority (the profession) and a low-status one without it (the movement). That is, contestation from regulators and managers gives rise to a struggle between powerful incumbents over the boundaries of recognized jurisdictions, while contestation from a social movement gives rise to a struggle between an incumbent profession and a marginalized challenger without any recognized claim to jurisdiction (cf. Fligstein and McAdam, 2012). This asymmetry shifts the dynamics of the struggle. Unlike regulators and managers who seek support from profession members to implement reform ( , (). Operating Room: Relational Spaces and Microinstitutional Change in Surgery. American Journal of Sociology, 115(3). 657–711. https://doi.org/10.1086/603535 ; , & al., , , & (). Contestation about Collaboration: Discursive Boundary Work among Professions. Organization Studies, 37(4). 497–522. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840615622067 ) , the social movements we theorize seek to enlist clients in collective action to alter the boundaries and content of a profession’ work ( , (). Moving politics: emotion and act up’s fight against AIDS. The University of Chicago Press. ; , (). Homosexuality and American psychiatry: the politics of diagnosis. Princeton University Press. ) .

Our focus on clients adds insights to the literature by foregrounding a basis for jurisdictional contestation that is quite different from the formal regulatory and managerial authority of actors most studied so far ( , (). Managerial Strategies of Domination. Power in Soft Bureaucracies. Organization Studies, 21(1). 141–161. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840600211001 ; , & al., , & (). Transnational Regulation of Professional Services: Governance Dynamics of Field Level Organizational Change. Retrieved from https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=2269966 ) . Social movements rely on the experiential knowledge of their adherents to gain clients’ support for their alternative projects. This distinctly epistemic basis for contestation is important because it creates unique complications for a profession seeking to defend its jurisdiction by invoking the authority of its expert knowledge ( , (). The crisis of expertise. Polity. ) . The means of construction, transmission, and validation of experiential knowledge are different from those of expert knowledge. They involve mutual sharing of first-person accounts within communities of experiential peers, with much of this narrative work taking place within dedicated spaces where professionals are not invited ( , (). Understanding self-help/mutual aid: experiential learning in the commons. Rutgers University Press. ; , (). Patient groups and health movements. InHackett, E., Amsterdamska, O., Lynch, M. & Wajcman, J. (Eds.), The handbook of science and technology studies. (3rd ed). MIT Press : Published in cooperation with the Society for the Social Studies of Science. ) . Within these peer-only spaces, the subjectivity and unicity of individual experiences are valorized and bind movement adherents to each other, while the objectivity and generalizability claimed by holders of expert knowledge are problematized and often dismissed ( , & al., , & (). Construction et reconnaissance des savoirs expérientiels des patients. Pratiques de Formation - Analyses, 2010(58-59). olivier_lv. Retrieved from https://hal.science/hal-00645113 ; , (). Emotions and identity in women’s self-help movements. InStryker, S., Owens, T. & White, R. (Eds.), Self, identity, and social movements.. University of Minnesota Press. ) . Social movements are formidable jurisdictional contestants because they validate the experiential knowledge of clients and encourage them to voice their aspirations for change.

Regulators and managers have sought to systematize expert knowledge and ease its sharing across professional boundaries, typically for reasons of efficiency and organizational flexibility ( & , & (). Managing Expert Knowledge: Organizational Challenges and Managerial Futures for the UK Medical Profession. Organization Studies, 30(7). 755–778. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840609104819 ; , & al., , , & (). Contestation about Collaboration: Discursive Boundary Work among Professions. Organization Studies, 37(4). 497–522. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840615622067 ) . Studies of jursdictional contestation by regulators and managers present their knowledge as complementary to professionals’ knowledge rather than substitute for it ( , (). Institutional change and healthcare organizations: from professional dominance to managed care. University of Chicago Press. ) . In contrast, social movements promote the use of adherents’ experiential knowledge to address clients’ needs as a legitimate substitute for expert knowledge in at least some important aspects of the profession’s work domain. This unique basis for jurisdictional contestation has important implications for how episodes of contestation play out, including the role of emotions in them.