Organizing Continuing Professional Education: A Comparative Case Analysis

Abstract

A conceptual basis for understanding the organization of continuing professional education across profession and type of parent institution is portrayed via three case studies of continuing professional education centers. The case studies reflect three orientations for organizing continuing professional education: a service orientation, an education orientation, and a hybrid orientation. In each case the organizing pattern was viewed in terms of the center's interaction with a complex environment. Several sectors of the environment were viewed as influential to the organizing patterns: the parent institution, the nature of any external funding, the practitioners served, the professionalization status of the group served, changing knowledge relevant to professionals' practice, the primary geographic region, and competition from other providers. The organizing of continuing professional education is discussed in light of selected literature.