Professionalism and public craftsmanship at street level

Rather than the overall quality of governance, this chapter explores quality in public professions by looking at public craftsmanship. What does it mean to be a ‘good’ public administrator according to professionals themselves? What value orientations do public professionals have toward public craftsmanship and how convergent are these? In-depth qualitative research among Dutch prison professionals (N = 18) indicates that the specific work context is paramount in identifying and prioritizing a compact set of professional values. However, understandings of how to translate these values into good craftsmanship show only marginal commonality in practice, with professionals making their own personal compilations of ideal qualities. The results call for a focus on apprehending the meaning of values in specific professional work contexts, and to move from the study of broad, predefined, and prearranged value sets to concrete articulations of values and the disparate nature of their actual application.