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In a complex and uncertain world, professional fields are learning that expressing their values and ethical directions to society is an increasingly important obligation. This holds true for records and information management (RIM), particularly since the field's direct value to individuals or social institutions is often less than clear. ARMA International (ARMA), the field's professional association, has responded to this need, in part, by developing and endorsing a code of professional responsibility for use by RIM practitioners, their workplace associates, ARMA chapters, those new to RIM (e.g., students), and other interested parties. This code addresses the field's ethical principles in three areas: society, employers, and the profession.
Continuing a series on professional issues in records and information management, this column examines the importance of a code of ethics, or code of responsibility, in the professionalization of occupations. It also provides the background for and text of ARMA International's new code of professional responsibility and suggests how this statement may further the field's professionalization.(1)
The sociology of work, a research field which studies work groups and professions, has identified the characteristics of established professions. Taken together, these characteristics form a useful model to gauge the progress of any occupation as it matures toward professional status. The process of becoming a profession is known as "professionalization." Because the process is quite lengthy, it is unrealistic to say definitively at any point in time that a field is or "is not" a profession. More meaningful is measurement of the extent of its progress toward achieving the characteristics of the professional model.
Two important characteristics of established professions speak to a field's value relationship with the larger society in which it operates:
1. To be recognized as a profession by society, a profession's value system must have a clear relationship to values held by members of society outside the profession. The would-be profession must show commitment to these broader values. Society understands and appreciates, for example, that the commitment of physicians to the broader values of health care service is higher than their interest in merely earning a fee.
2. To enunciate its points of contact with basic social values and to remind its practitioners and clients of the profession's commitment to these values, a profession develops a...