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Innovative organisation

Abstract:

An important theme within contemporary sociological writing is the need for new ideas and approaches to the understanding of emerging forms of social organisation. This work challenges taken-for-granted perceptions about the organisation of social phenomena such as the family, economy and policy by revealing how complex and diverse the relations within these institutions are. Such an analysis focuses on the actual patterns or networks of social relations in which actors are located. It seeks to explain how creative, responsive peiople, who are both enabled and constrained by the contexts in which they are located, establish networks of relations which make new social forms possible. This theoretical approach is therefore concerned with the way in which relationships between people shape their interests, strategies, resources and outcomes. I would like to draw on the idea of organisations as social constructions, whose structure reflects the nature/type of social relations from which they emerge, to explain the formation of the New Zealand College of Midwives. My objective was to examine the establishment of this professional organisation as a means of exploring how organisations are shaped. I spoke to Karen Guilliland, the inaugural president to hear her account of the process. To this account I have added some theoretical ideas about the development of professions.

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College constitution, College philosophy, midwifery standards, New Zealand College of Midwives formation