We were invited to deliver a keynote address and run a workshop during the corporate morning of the 2017 International Vincentian Conference on Business Ethics. Our interactive session discussed the role of professionalism, prompted by international perspectives from accountancy, finance and business and insights from education and corporate initiatives.
The key messages from our session were:
- To think deeply about the nature and meaning of professionalism (and being a GOOD professional) in the changing business context, changing nature of work and the advancement of technologies;
- To engage the audience to construct and identify the essential qualities and competencies involved in being a professional, in contrast with technicians
- To reflect on the importance of teaching professionalism intentionally and critically
- To provoke by raising the importance of designing educational experiences, by planning the conditions that could foster values, capacities of judgment and moral sensitivity