[author]Liu Sida

[content]

Research on Contemporary Chinese Professions under the New Development Pattern :From the Division of Labor to Professional Skills

Liu Sida

Abstarct: In the new development pattern, the efforts made to promote highquality development place new demands founded on the division of labor and the development of professional skills in contemporary Chinese professions. High-quality professional skills are not necessarily highly standardized or rationally developed, but are based on the professional autonomy of specialized talent, accumulated through long-term practical experience in the various ecosystems and food chains of professional systems, and gradually developed through social interaction between different professions. The basic theories of occupational sociology, such as Durkheim's social division of labor, the neo-Weberian school of market control theory and the professional system theory of the Chicago school, all provide useful ideas for understanding the development of contemporary Chinese professions. This helps to explain the implications of the division of labor in the new development pattern and its impact on the development, interaction and internationalization of professions in China.

Key words: Division of Labor, Professional Skills, Occupational Ecosystem, Endogenous, Globalization

Under the national strategies of "accelerating the construction of a new development pattern with the domestic cycle as the main body and the domestic and international cycles promoting each other" and "striving to promote high-quality development", the research topics and paradigms of China's social sciences are faced with brand-new opportunities and challenges. Taking sociology as an example, since the 1980s, China's sociological research has been focused on issues related to social stratification, such as urban-rural stratification, class stratification, family and gender differences, and market transformation. The development of such subfields as sociology of labor, economic sociology, urban sociology, and political sociology is also closely related to the issues of rural migrant workers, township and village enterprises, urbanization, and social governance, which were the most prominent issues in the process of China's social change during the reform and opening-up period. However, the current Chinese society has changed significantly compared to the turn of the century when contemporary Chinese sociology established its mainstream problem consciousness, and a large number of new phenomena and new problems concerning the social division of labor have arisen in the process of social development, with the emergence of new professions such as data engineers, financial analysts, psychologists, real estate brokers, animation producers, webcasters, and take-away riders. The professional skills and organizational structure of traditional occupations such as doctors, lawyers, architects, teachers, journalists, etc. have also changed significantly, and all occupations have played a pivotal role in the construction of a high-level socialist market economic system, the construction of a modern industrial system, the realization of scientific and technological innovation, self-reliance and self-enhancement, and the promotion of a high level of openness to the outside world and other high-quality development policies, and it is difficult to explain all of these developments and changes only by using the established research paradigms of social stratification or labor sociology.

Neither sociology nor other related disciplines have yet made corresponding theoretical responses and paradigm adjustments to the rapid development of these traditional and emerging occupations in the new era. As one of the basic units of analysis for understanding modern society, occupations have received much less attention in contemporary Chinese social science research than other units of analysis such as class, gender, and ethnicity, and empirical research on important occupations such as medicine, engineering, finance, law, journalism, and education has been dispersed among different disciplines such as sociology, economics, law, journalism and communication, and education, etc., and a general theoretical analytical framework that transcends specific occupations has yet to be formed. However, no matter whether we start from class, gender, ethnicity, or urban-rural differences, we are unable to make a strong analysis and explanation of the interdependence and diversified development of various occupational groups triggered by the domestic general cycle and the domestic and international double cycle under the new development pattern. This is not only a theoretical shortcoming in the academic sense, but in the long run will also have an impact on the formulation and implementation of macro-policies for the high-quality development of occupations in China.

How to transcend the traditional sociological research paradigm, which focuses on the division of labor and social stratification as the core issues, and conduct social science research on various occupational groups in contemporary China in the process of comprehensively building a modern socialist country? This paper attempts to propose an analytical framework for understanding the division of labor and professional skills in contemporary Chinese society from the perspective of occupational sociology, in order to elucidate the professional skills required for achieving high-quality development of occupations in the new development pattern and their related various social structures and interactive processes. The basic unit of analysis in this line of research is not class but occupation, the focus of attention is not on social structure but on professional work, and the purpose of the research is not to reveal social inequality but to understand the importance of professional skills and occupational groups to the new development pattern and the governance of a modern socialist country. The following analysis will delve into the strengths and weaknesses of basic theories of occupational sociology, such as Turgon's social division of labor theory, the neo-Weberian school's market control theory, and the Chicago school's occupational systems theory, for understanding the development of occupations in contemporary China, and try to develop a theoretical and analytical framework of professional skills and occupational ecosystems based on China's local experience to explain the significance of the division of labor in the new pattern of development as well as its implications for the development, interaction, and internationalization of occupations in China.

1.Professional skills and high-quality development

"High-quality development is the primary task of building a modern socialist country in an all-round manner", which includes building a high-level socialist market economic system, constructing a modernized industrial system, comprehensively promoting the revitalization of the countryside, fostering coordinated regional development, and advancing high-level openness to the outside world. High-quality development "is the development with innovation as the first driving force", and should adhere to marketization, rule of law, and internationalization to complement each other, and "dynamically improve in high-level international competition". From a sociological perspective, the basis for realizing high-quality development and innovation is professional skills, i.e., the skills that each occupation accumulates and creates through the development of its academic knowledge and practical experience in the workplace. Professional skills arise from the social division of labor, yet go beyond general physical labor and manifest themselves differently in different business fields and occupational groups. The development of the economy, politics, culture, society and ecological civilization is based on the professional skills created and passed on by the relevant occupational groups in various fields of practice.

Professional skills are a central concept in the sociology of occupation, from Turgot's theory of the division of labor in society to the Chicago School's theory of occupational systems as a key point in understanding the development of modern societies. Turgot argued that the division of labor in the transition from traditional to modern societies would lead to a change in the form of social solidarity, and that what he called "organic solidarity" was based on the rise of occupational groups (also known as "corporate bodies"). In Turgon's theoretical framework, the concept of occupation covers all industry groups, and there is no distinction between the so-called "profession”  and “occupation”, which is common in British and American occupational studies. The occupational group is not only a way of organizing professional work under the social division of labor, but also a "sub-group" between the state and the individual, which plays a crucial function of communication and reflection in modern society. However, one question that Turgot never clearly explains is where the internal solidarity of professional groups comes from, and more specifically, what are professional skills and professional work? And how do their moral implications arise?

The structural-functionalist school of thought, derived from Turgot's theoretical tradition, has provided unsatisfactory answers to these questions. For example, Parsons argues that occupational services are altruistic and interest-neutral, and that there are three common features of all occupations, namely, rationality based on institutional and technical competence, functional differentiation, and universalism. But this functionalist reading of occupations does not survive empirical scrutiny because even the three most typical occupations in British and American cultures, doctors, lawyers, and clergy, do not all conform to several of the characteristics that Parsons summarizes. Occupational work is not necessarily rational or universalist, not to mention altruistic, but full of uncertainty and conflict of interest, the so-called "functional differentiation" only puts different occupations into different positions in the social division of labor, but does not further explain the similarities and differences between the professional skills and organizational structure of each occupation. This theoretical dilemma of Parsons in fact reflects a general problem of Western occupational sociological research in the mid-20th century, that is, attempting to distinguish occupations from other trades by summarizing certain characteristics, while theoretical and empirical researches in the decades since then have fully demonstrated the absurdity of this kind of research, there is no essential difference between the so-called "professions" and "occupation", nad the term "profession" in British and American culture is really just an "honorary symbol".

Contemporary occupational sociology has two main different understandings of professional skills. The first is the market control theory of neo-Weberianism, which views professional work as a commodity and, in contrast to Parsons, argues that professional services are self-interested rather than altruistic, and that each profession needs to gain social recognition for the value of the goods it provides through a purposeful "vocational program." As a commodity, occupational work must be differentiated from similar work done by non-professionals in order to create a demand for its purchase and thus a market for its services. The basis of this job differentiation is expertise, because only by developing unique and valuable specialized skills can an occupation provide services that laypeople cannot. However, while market cybernetics emphasizes the commodification of professional skills, it does not further explore the process of their social construction, but rather focuses on the structural mechanisms that achieve occupational monopoly - what Weber called "social closure" - such as collegiate education, industry access, trade associations, and professional ethics. These structural systems are, of course, necessary for the high-quality development of many professions, but the problem is that no profession can exist in isolation from its daily work, and even with the most complete education and access mechanisms, there is no way to talk about the professional skills of the profession without the demands of the job and the effective control of the daily work.

The second understanding of professional skills is the system of professions theory put forward by the Chicago School, which basically starts from the link between occupation and work, what Abbott calls "jurisdiction". The Chicago School's understanding of occupational work stems from Hughes's account of the 'natural history' of occupational development, which argues that occupations exist on the premise that there is a system of work in society based on the division of labour, and that occupations evolve naturally through interaction with each other about work, just as the natural history of cities evolves through the interaction of different communities and ethnic groups. Abbott further advances the ecological theory perspective by viewing occupations as an ecosystem that evolves through jurisdictional conflict, in which each occupation makes a jurisdictional claim to a job based on its expertise, and then forms a jurisdictional solution with each other. Similarly to Turgot, the Chicago School argues that the definition of professions encompasses all groups of professions, not just elite professions such as doctors and lawyers, or else there would be no ecosystem of professions based on the interactions between the various professions.

Where, then, does an occupation's expertise actually come from? Fredrickson argues that professional autonomy is guaranteed as long as there is legitimacy control over the core work of the profession in the day-to-day workplace, irrespective of how the social structure of the profession changes. This legitimacy control is rooted in the profession's academic knowledge system, and the institutionalisation of academic knowledge is a key process in the formation of professional skills; if an occupation's academic knowledge is either too simple or too complex, it weakens the legitimacy control over the work. In addition to systems of academic knowledge, Abbott summarises three basic behaviours of professional work, namely diagnosis, reasoning, and treatment. When a matter from a client enters the professional workplace, it is first incorporated into the academic knowledge system of the profession through "diagnosis", and then, through the acts of "reasoning" and "treatment", the solution to the problem is obtained. In this social process of professional work, professional skills are not limited to academic knowledge; both diagnosis and treatment are highly practical and require experience gained over a long period of professional work in order to develop skills that are effective for specific problems.

It can be seen that the Chicago School's discourse on professional skills goes beyond Turgon's theory of the division of labour and the neo-Weberian school's discourse on vocational commodities, and concentrates on the knowledge base and social process of vocational work. What is needed to achieve high-quality development and build a modern industrial system is precisely a variety of vocational services based on systematic academic knowledge and sophisticated diagnostic, reasoning, and therapeutic processes. However, high-quality occupational work is not necessarily the most "scientific" or "standardized" service. Over-standardization of the work of an occupation may, on the contrary, degrade the value of its occupational commodities and its status in the social division of labour, or even produce the so-called "de-occupationalization". This is because the core process of many occupational services is inherently uncertain and discretionary. Whether it is a doctor performing an operation or a judge deciding a case, whether it is a reporter conducting an on-the-ground interview or an architect designing a house, it is impossible to become the kind of "vending machine" with a high degree of formal rationality that Weber imagined. Instead, they must rely on the professional judgement of professionals in specific situations, even in the 21st century, when artificial intelligence is highly developed. Although technological developments have historically had a profound impact on the professional skills of many occupations, and have even led to the decline or even demise of some traditional occupations, the academic knowledge and practical experience that are central to professional work have not yet been completely replaced by machines, networks, or artificial intelligence. High-quality professional work cannot be completely standardised compared to relatively simple, mechanical, repetitive labour.

In addition to the changes triggered by technological development, another important historical change in professional skills has been the gradual refinement and stratification of the division of labour within professions. Taking the legal profession as an example, at the early stage of the development of China's contemporary legal profession, most lawyers were the so-called "jack-of-all-trades" lawyers, whose daily work did not focus on one or several specialised fields. With the increasing level of economic development, the emergence of various social problems in the transition period and the rapid growth of the number of lawyers in recent years, China's lawyers have also produced a very significant division of professional fields, many lawyers and firms have begun to focus on a particular field of practice, such as securities, real estate, intellectual property rights, marriage and family, criminal proceedings and so on. This kind of internal division of labour within the profession is an important manifestation of the "functional division" mentioned above, but Parsons' concept only emphasizes the external social function of the professional division of labour, such as lawyers engaging in different fields of practice serving different social groups and social problems, but ignores the internal stratification of the profession and inequality triggered by it. Also take the lawyer profession for example, whether it is our country domestic or abroad, in the highly developed occupation under the internal division of labour, the differences of the status, income, educational background, occupational culture of the lawyers providing investment and mergers and acquisitions, finance and securities other non-litigation services for big companies between lawyers providing general civil, criminal cases and other litigation services for individuals are vast, almost formed two very different "hemispheres". Similar social stratification is commonplace within other professions, such as the division between teachers in liberal arts and sciences colleges, teachers in vocational colleges and researchers in research institutes in academic professions, or between investment bankers, financial analysts in the financial and banking industry, who serve corporate clients, and financial advisers, who serve individual clients.

The social basis for the internal stratification of professions is, on the one hand, the different types of clients that professionals serve, but on the other hand, it is also reflected in the differences in the professional skills required for the work of the professions themselves. Differences in the professional skills of doctors in different fields, such as internal medicine and surgery, have a direct impact on the internal stratification structure of the medical profession, and even in professions where the differentiation of professional skills is not as obvious as in the medical profession, the path of "excellence" that improves the "purity" of the work and reduces the non-professional elements of the work is also an effective way to improve the internal status of the profession. Abbott describes this phenomenon as 'professional retreat', whereby practitioners of higher status and prestige in an occupation give up jurisdiction over matters of less expertise and purity of work in order to allow themselves to work in a purer occupational environment. For example, in research universities, professors often leave the more repetitive aspects of teaching (e.g., correcting students' homework) to teaching assistants and spend more of their time on research, and some schools even differentiate between "teaching posts" and "research posts" to allow researchers with strong research skills to work in a more purely professional environment. Under an academic evaluation system that emphasises scientific research over teaching, these scholars with a higher degree of professional purity may be able to achieve a higher academic status in the industry.

However, increased purity of work does not mean that the range of professional skills has become narrower or homogeneous. In modern societies with a highly complex division of labour, there is hardly any occupation whose professional skills are not influenced by other occupations. Although Abbott's Systems of Professions Theory emphasises the "turf war" between different occupations in the occupational ecosystem, this theory, which is based on the experience of occupational development in Britain and the United States in the mid-to-late twentieth century, focuses on the social construction process of professional skills mainly on individual occupations and does not take into account the intersection of different disciplines and the influence of competition and interaction between different occupations. At the beginning of the 21st century, in the midst of high-level international competition triggered by the rapid development of cross-disciplinary fields and the ever-changing global division of labour, the sources of academic knowledge of professional skills are often diverse and mixed, and in addition to the core skills of each profession, the "fringe skills" originating from other professions are also becoming increasingly important. For example, a real estate agent is not only an expert in buying, selling and renting houses, but also has to know the relevant laws and regulations and the bank loan process; a pop singer's professional skills are not only in music, but also in related fields such as dance and performance; and so on. It can be seen that the process of social construction of professional skills is a practical process of interaction and integration of academic knowledge in different fields, and the so-called institutionalisation of academic knowledge by scholars such as Fredrickson and Abbott is only one of the sides.

In summary, the professional skills needed for high-quality development are a specialised commodity with legitimacy and monopoly produced in modern societies where the division of labour is highly developed, and their social basis is not only academic knowledge, but also the social processes of diagnosis, reasoning, and treatment that are part of the daily work of the profession. And in these social processes, the interactions between professionals and their clients as well as the interactions between different professions affect the construction and innovation of professional skills. In recent years, some scholars in Western sociology have even proposed to replace occupational sociology with the so-called "sociology of professional skills", because the process of constructing professional skills is not necessarily monopolised by a certain profession, but may be influenced by other professions, non-professionals, and even by the tools and equipments used in the work of the profession. In the final analysis, however, high-quality professional skills do not have to be highly standardised or rationalised, nor can they be replaced by tools, equipment or artificial intelligence, but rather the professional autonomy and discretion of professionals in the workplace must be respected and safeguarded, and it is from the autonomy of daily work and the interdependence between professions that the cultural and ethical connotations of the professions outside of material production are derived. In the transition from high-speed to high-quality development in contemporary Chinese society, whether it be economic growth, scientific and technological innovation, or opening up to the outside world, it is necessary to progressively improve professional skills in all relevant business fields on the premise of safeguarding occupational autonomy, rather than unilaterally pursuing standardisation, intelligence and digitisation, or else risk facing a wide range of human-related bottlenecks in the course of development.

2.Constructing an endogenous occupational ecosystem

Taking professional skills seriously is the first step in the development of high-quality careers, but what is more important is the construction of a career ecosystem with Chinese characteristics, and the theoretical contribution of this paper is to propose a basic analytical framework for describing and explaining this career ecosystem. What is the so-called "career" in the Chinese context? Although the religious basis of European and American occupations, which emphasises "divine calling", does not exist in China, the fact is that China's traditional social stratification is based on industrial groups such as scholars, peasants, labourers, and merchants, and the concept of "class" in the Western sense was not introduced into China until the beginning of the twentieth century. The concept of "class" in the Western sense was not introduced to China until the beginning of the 20th century. After the dramatic social changes of the twentieth century, the composition, organisation and jurisdictional boundaries of these occupational groups changed dramatically, and with the shaping of occupational life by the political culture of the Communist Party of China (CPC), and the restoration and rapid development of various trades and professions since the reform and opening up of the country, a completely new occupational ecosystem is beginning to take shape in China at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

Occupational development in contemporary China has gone through a process of change from learning knowledge and transplanting systems from the West to localised and autonomous development. In the early years of reform and opening up, various professions borrowed heavily from foreign experience, especially from developed countries such as Europe, the United States and Japan, both in terms of professional skills and organisational structure. Taking the legal profession as an example, from the textbooks of law schools to the normative references of the legislature, from the robes and gavels of judges to the partnership system of law firms, the influence of foreign systems and professional knowledge on the early development of the legal profession in contemporary China has been almost ubiquitous, and foreign experts and institutions have also played a very important role in promoting the early stages of China's legal reform. However, with the widespread popularisation of legal education, the shaping of the national legal system and the professionalisation of the legal profession in China at the beginning of the 21st century, the significance and role of legal transplants have gradually diminished, and except for a handful of foreign-related fields, the expertise of China's major legal professions, such as lawyers, judges, and prosecutors, has become highly localised. In recent years, with the introduction of the "Belt and Road" and other national policies to promote a high level of openness to the outside world, China's legal professionals and professional service organisations have also begun to go abroad, applying China's legal knowledge and systems to overseas investment, commercial arbitration and other international fields. It can be seen that the profession's pursuit of global legitimacy has different manifestations at different stages of development. At the early stage of reform and opening up, when imported knowledge and systems were urgently needed, it was mainly manifested as a large amount of learning and borrowing from foreign experience, while at the stage of accelerating the construction of a new development pattern and focusing on the promotion of high-quality development, the further development of China's professions has to be based on local experience, and on the one hand, it is necessary to build a stable, mature domestic vocational ecosystem in the domestic macrocycle, and on the other hand, the high-level international competitiveness of China's vocational industry should be further strengthened in the domestic and international double cycle.

Endogeneity refers to the fact that the social structure of an ecosystem is mainly generated by the interaction process between its internal actors and is less dependent on the environment or actors from the outside. Enhancing the endogenous dynamics and reliability of the domestic macrocycle requires the formation of domestic occupational ecosystems with strong endogeneity, which are neither overly dependent on expertise and organisational structures from abroad, nor overly interfered with by actors and institutions external to the occupational system, such as the state, clients and organisations. In each country's occupational ecosystem, there are many different "task areas", such as engineering, education, health, law, information, etc., in which several occupations coexist, and each of them has a monopoly on a certain type of work in the field, i.e., what the neo-Weberian theory calls "social closure. social closure. For example, reporters and editors in traditional media such as newspapers and television used to have a strong monopoly over news reporting work in the information business field, and the journalism profession also had high industry standards and social closure in important aspects of market control such as entry qualifications, trade associations, and professional ethics. However, with the rapid development of the Internet and social media in recent years, the social closure of the journalism profession has been greatly reduced, and the professional ecology of the information business has become highly diversified, resulting in the gradual contraction of the jurisdiction of professional journalists and editors in this professional "ecosystem" of information and a significant decline in their professional status. At the same time, a variety of new professions have emerged, such as Internet writers, video anchors, self-media editors, and Internet marketers, creating many new forms of social interaction and a new type of "food chain" between professional groups in the information business professional ecosystem.

It can be seen that although every occupation has a tendency to monopolise work, the understanding of occupational ecosystems must go beyond individual occupations to a systematic description and analysis of the entire field of practice, starting with the processes of social interaction between different occupations, and the social structures and jurisdictional relationships, such as ecospheres and food chains, that are formed in these processes. Compared with Abbott's occupational systems theory, the occupational ecosystems analysis framework proposed in this paper focuses not only on the process of jurisdictional conflict and boundary work within the same field of practice, but also on two other important theoretical issues that have often been neglected in Western occupational sociological research: (1) the exchange of power and resources between different occupations and other actors; (2) the state, organisations and other external actors on the endogeneity of occupational systems.

No national or local occupational ecosystem is completely and fully connected, with daily interactions between every two occupations in it. Therefore, to understand the jurisdiction of an occupation, it is necessary to look at that occupation in the context of a specific business area of the ecosystem. For example, the finance and banking profession is involved in such a diverse range of business areas, with capital operations in technology, engineering, energy, healthcare, education, real estate, and other industries requiring the services provided by the profession, that it may seem difficult to clearly define the jurisdiction of its work within the overall occupational ecosystem. However, within a specific business area, the jurisdiction of the financial banking profession is quite clear, such as in real estate where banks focus on lending matters such as mortgage loans, and in technology where one of the main services of financial bankers is related to the financing of mergers and acquisitions and IPOs of technology companies. It is in these specific business areas that the various ecosystems and food chains between professions are formed through the process of boundary setting and exchange. In the real estate business, for example, real estate brokers, bank loan specialists, real estate lawyers, architects, engineers, renovators, moving services, and many other professions are active in this business, and how are the jurisdictions between these professions defined? And how is the division of labour between them achieved? The answers to these questions can only be found through empirical research in the daily workplaces of the professions, but so far, such sociological studies of the professions that take the entire business field as the unit of analysis are rare in both Western and Eastern academic circles.

Abbott's occupational systems theory is a theory of competition and equilibrium in which the discourse on occupational jurisdiction overemphasises competition and conflict, i.e. the process of "boundary making" of jurisdiction. This theoretical tendency follows the Chicago School of sociology's academic tradition of treating competition as the most fundamental process of social interaction. In fact, however, cooperation and competition go hand in hand in the daily interaction of occupations, and the division of labour is socially based on the interdependence of different occupational groups. In the real estate business field mentioned above, for example, the jurisdictional conflict between real estate brokers, who play a key role in the purchase and sale of houses, and lawyers, bank loan specialists, and house decorators is not obvious in daily work, but more obvious is the division of labour and cooperation among these professions, and real estate brokers are really facing the competition from technological development and national regulation, such as the rapid emergence of the real estate information websites and government-led second-hand property trading platforms. To explain the impact of these actors from outside the professional ecosystem on professional jurisdiction, it is necessary to go beyond the basic paradigm of jurisdictional conflict and take seriously the blurring of jurisdictional boundaries between professions, as well as the maintenance and regulation of professional jurisdiction by the state, which is known as "boundary blurring" and "boundary maintenance". It is in the various jurisdictional changes and flows resulting from these processes of occupational jurisdictional delimitation that the shape of the division of labour in the domestic macro-circulation is gradually taking shape.

In addition to jurisdictional boundaries, another key process in the formation of occupational ecosystems and food chains is exchange, both between occupations and between occupations and external actors such as the State. While delimitation is a process of dividing and establishing "territories" between professions, exchange links different actors in professional life through the flow of power and resources, forming various food chains and thus achieving the circulation and reproduction of power and resources within the professional ecosystem. Taking the legal profession as an example, there exists a kind of "symbiotic exchange" relationship between lawyers, grassroots legal service workers and other legal service workers and judges, prosecutors, judicial administrative officials and other state officials, and this kind of exchange is maintained through alumni, fellow townspeople and other social relations for a long time, and the exchange is mutually beneficial to both parties in the process of many years of interaction. The existence of symbiotic exchanges has led to the formation of a relationship of dependence between practitioners of the legal profession and state power, which in turn has shaped the highly fragmented social structure of China's legal services market. Similar occupational food chains are common in other professions, such as the "two-way domination" of patients and pharmaceutical companies by public hospitals.

There is a symbiotic exchange between professions and countries, and various ecological relationships such as parasitism and symbiosis are also formed between different professions in the same business field through the exchange of resources, and affect the definition of professional jurisdiction. Taking the sports business field as an example, with the professionalisation of Chinese football since the 1990s, related professions such as athletes, coaches, referees, club managers, media commentators, team reporters, and so on have gradually taken shape, and various resource exchanges between these professions that are symbiotic within the same ecosystem are daily and continuous, and the power domination of coaches and athletes at the top of the professional food chain over other professionals is also very obvious. However, no exchange is unilateral power domination. Although the work of journalists, presenters and other sports media personnel is largely dependent on athletes and coaches, they also provide a daily medium of contact between these sportspersons and fans, without which the potential "customer base" of football would be drastically reduced, and the income and social status of athletes would be reduced. It can be seen that the symbiosis and interdependence between different professions in the same business field is based on the exchange of power, resources and information in the daily workplace, and that the power or interest relationships formed through these exchanges are constantly adapted as the professional ecosystem and food chain evolve.

How, then, can an occupation improve its professional skills and maintain its high quality so that it can take advantage of its position in this changing occupational ecosystem? The neo-Weberian theory of market control argues that the key to improving the status of an occupation lies in achieving control over two production processes, one of which is the control of the production process of training personnel for occupational services, and the other of which is the control of the production process of providing occupational services. Control over the quality of personnel production is achieved primarily through academic education and industry access, such as academic requirements, specialised curricula, industry access examinations, training and internships. The control of the quality of professional services, on the other hand, is mainly realised through trade associations and professional ethics, such as the formulation of written ethical rules, price regulation of professional services, and the prohibition of unfair competition. However, in China's social context, most professional trade associations are not highly autonomous corporate bodies and lack organisational "corporate autonomy", but are managed and regulated by state organs. Although the academic education of professions is mainly accomplished through higher education and scientific research institutions, the State's influence on the system and content of education is also omnipresent. Thus, the high-quality development of the professions in our country is not a market-driven, socially closed process, but a State-driven process, in which both the quality of personnel training and the quality of vocational services are improved under the macro-planning and day-to-day regulation of the State.

If one looks at professional development from the perspective of national norms, it is easy to see two obvious problems with market cybernetics' assumptions of a monolithic path and a closed monopoly of the occupational market. Firstly, not every occupation can be so-called "professionalised". Some occupations are less in need of academic education and more in need of traditional apprenticeships (e.g. chefs, craftsmen, comedians, etc.), while other occupations are less in need of an institutionalised entry mechanism or rules of ethics and more in need of openness and mobility (e.g. salespersons, takeaway riders, webcasters, etc.). Secondly, achieving high-quality development requires a collaborative division of labour between different occupations in the same business field, rather than the free growth and competition between plants and animals as assumed by the traditional theory of the Chicago School, and the role of the state is indispensable in the formation of this occupational ecosystem, because only through reasonable regulation by the state can it transcend narrow industry interests and prioritise the public interest.

Of course, the State's regulation of the division of labour in the professions should be proportionate, as excessive interference in the organisational structure of the professions and in their daily work will infringe on the "corporate autonomy" and "clinical autonomy" of the professions, thereby inhibiting the enhancement of professional skills. To ensure the "clinical autonomy" of professionals in their daily work, not only is it necessary for the state to reasonably define the division of labour in the professional workplace, so that practitioners in different professional fields can perform their respective duties, but it is also necessary to institutionalize it through national legislation and the establishment and implementation of the internal rules of the organization, so as to prevent government officials, business leaders and other non-professionals from exerting excessive influence and control over professional work. In addition, national regulation of occupational ecosystems should respect the diversity of occupations and the need for division of labour among them, rather than setting similar educational, entry and ethical requirements for all occupations "across the board", as assumed by market control theories. For occupations that are not suitable for higher education or qualification examinations, emphasis should not be placed on academic requirements or examination results, but rather on the accumulation and improvement of professional skills in daily work. For those occupations with a high degree of openness and mobility, excessive industry barriers should not be set, and emphasis should be placed on the articulation between these occupations and other occupations, so that practitioners can move in an orderly manner in a benign occupational food chain, and freely explore and develop their own careers.

In addition to the effective regulation of the occupational ecosystem by the state, the various types of hierarchical organisations in modern societies have had a profound impact on the division of labour and professional skills in occupations. While the rise of hierarchy is an important feature of the rationalisation of modern society, as described by Weber, the traditional organisation of professional life has been a collegiality in which peers negotiate and co-operate on the basis of their professional skills, such as the partnership system in law firms or the autonomy of the faculty in university departments. However, as many professions move towards larger organisations, collegiality is being eroded by hierarchical systems, such as the hierarchical system of partners in large law firms, or the complex administrative systems of teaching and research in higher education institutions, which can lead to a decline in professional autonomy. In addition, more and more professionals have begun to take up positions in corporations, government agencies and other sectionalised organisations, and positions based on professional skills such as legal advisors, financial directors and network engineers have gradually become entrenched within organisations, increasing the flow of people from career services to these sectionalised organisations. In contrast to the external influence of the state on professions, the influence of organisations on the division of labour and the development of professional skills is more routine and diffuse. When professional work is 'caged' in a hierarchical system, and when a collegial professional culture is replaced by a commercialism based on competition and profit, or a bureaucracy based on hierarchy and obedience, the institutional and cultural ground for the production of high quality expertise is destroyed. Therefore, even in the contemporary Chinese context, where professional "corporate autonomy" is generally low, and even in the most powerful government agencies and state-owned enterprises, "clinical autonomy" of professional work should be effectively guaranteed, so that professionals can develop and innovate their professional skills in a relatively relaxed organisational and institutional environment.

Managing the relationship between the profession and the external environmental factors of the ecosystem, such as clients, communities and networks, is also a necessary condition for achieving high-quality development of the profession. In the 21st century, with the rapid development of technology, the gradual maturity of community services, and the increasing complexity of client types, the external environment and social relations faced by the profession are also highly diverse and uncertain. The social status and public image of a profession are not only accumulated in daily work, but also significantly affected by customer evaluation, media reports and online public opinion. Occupational sociological theories traditionally hold that the quality of professional services should be evaluated by peers in the industry rather than by clients or the public, because the technicality and complexity of professional skills are difficult for outsiders to understand and assess. However, in today's highly developed network information, the rise of a wide variety of client rating systems and media network rankings has impacted on the internal evaluation systems of many professions, and even professions with high status and income such as doctors and lawyers are unable to escape from the constraints imposed on their professional work by new mediums such as online service platforms on the Internet. For example, online medical and online legal counselling services, which have been gaining popularity in recent years, often lead to a decline in the professional autonomy and professional status of doctors and lawyers involved in these services, which in the long run may even have an impact on the social stratification structure of the profession. Therefore, the construction of an occupational ecosystem under the new development pattern of promoting the domestic macro-cycle and building a modern industrial system not only requires the establishment of independence and autonomy vis-à-vis foreign occupations, but also must effectively cope with the various influences of the system's external subjects (such as the state, organisations, networks, etc.) from within the country, so as to form a system of division of labour with a high degree of expertise and endogeneity that is truly suited to China's national conditions and serves the Chinese society.

3.International development of Chinese occupations under the global division of labour

An endogenous occupational ecosystem is not closed to the outside world. As Luhmann said, a social system is both operationally closed and cognitively open; operational closeness means that the mode of operation and rules of the social system are relatively independent of the external environment, while cognitive openness ensures the communication of information between the system and the environment. In the context of globalisation in the 21st century, not only does an occupational ecosystem exist within each country, but the deepening of the global division of labour has long since created various industrial chains between countries around the world, including the economy, science and technology, the media, education, the environment, sports, etc., and in each of these industrial chains, there is the coexistence and development of a number of different occupations from various countries. To promote a high level of opening up to the outside world, "relying on the advantages of China's super-large-scale market, attracting global resource elements with a large domestic cycle, and enhancing the linkage effect of two resources in two domestic and international markets", China's vocational ecosystem must remain cognitively open. However, in recent years, the international political situation has been complicated and volatile, and protectionism and unilateralism have prevailed, which has also brought many uncertainties to the career development under the global division of labour. How to realise a double domestic and international cycle under the complex and volatile international situation, and form a new development pattern of international and domestic co-operation, which is mutually reinforcing with the great domestic cycle, is an important issue for all occupations that are booming in China. At the same time, the global advancement of national macro policies such as the "Belt and Road" has also put forward brand new requirements for the high-quality and international development of Chinese professions, especially with the expansion of the scale of overseas investment by Chinese enterprises and the enhancement of their international influence, the demand for internationalisation of related professions such as finance, law, taxation and media is imminent.

However, the internationalisation of professions in China has always faced a dilemma. On the one hand, the internationalisation of professional skills and vocational services often implies compliance with so-called "global norms", which are mainly formulated and implemented by Western developed countries, which have accumulated a great deal of dominance in the course of centuries of colonialism and globalisation. Breaking the monopoly of Western professions over these global standards and norms is a very difficult task, and professions in developing countries often have no choice but to accept Western-dominated professional norms and cultures in the process of "going global". On the other hand, in order for professional skills and vocational services with Chinese characteristics and originality to be recognised in international competition, it is necessary to go beyond the standards and norms set by Western professions and to take a high-quality path of development that is based on the social structure and culture of China's professions and at the same time on a path of international convergence. In reality, it is often difficult to reconcile these two aspects.

How can this dilemma be resolved? It is important to recognise that the monopoly of Western professions over global norms is difficult to break in the short term, and that learning and conformity to these norms is a necessary part of the globalisation of Chinese professions. The basis for high-quality development and innovation is the mastery and skilful application of existing academic knowledge and professional skills, and the ability to navigate within pre-existing social structures and institutional arrangements. In his study of the globalisation of the economics profession, Foulkard uses Marx's and Schumpeter's concept of "creative destruction" to suggest that global organisations such as the IMF and multinational law firms dominated by Europe and the United States, through the training of economists, lawyers, accountants and other professionals from all over the world, have achieved a "revolution of the structure from the inside", which has had an impact on the pattern of professional development in developing countries. The so-called "creative destruction" is in fact a process of global dissemination and diffusion of institutional innovation, which is not a unidirectional social process, let alone the exclusive right of certain developed Western countries. After gradually mastering the global norms originating from Europe and the United States, the professions in emerging economies such as China, India, Brazil, etc. can also disseminate these norms globally or regionally through reverse institutional innovation.

The diffusion of institutional innovations presupposes innovation, including innovation in professional skills and in the social structure of professions. In terms of professional skills, the global rise of China's high-tech industry in the past decade has been closely linked to professional and technical innovation in related professions such as engineers and data scientists. However, the epistemological underpinnings of professional skills differ across occupations, with some being scientific and others normative or aesthetic. While scientific knowledge and engineering skills are universal and more easily transcend cultural divides to gain legitimacy globally, professions based on normative or aesthetic epistemological foundations such as journalists, lawyers, architects, writers, musicians, etc. encounter more obstacles to professional skill innovation in the globalisation process. For example, although professional skills in business areas such as music, film and television, and animation in China have improved by leaps and bounds in recent years, and a large number of excellent and original works have been produced, they are still less recognised globally, and one of the major reasons for this is that the values and aesthetics of these works are out of step with the mainstream Western culture. The clash of ideologies and norms between the East and the West is even more pronounced in the more political fields of practice, such as law and journalism.

In addition to innovations in professional skills, innovations in the social structure of the profession are also an effective means of spreading institutional innovations. Taking the legal profession as an example, in the field of global business legal services, which has long been based on common law, although the professional skills of China's lawyers have not yet been universally recognised in cross-border legal transactions, the organisational structure of Chinese law firms, however, has successfully achieved the creative destruction of the highly homogeneous traditional organisational structure of Anglo-American-dominated global law firms, and has taken a diversified trajectory on both the scale and globalisation development paths that is different from that of Western firms. By making full use of the advantages of China's mega market and the need for internal stratification and consolidation resulting from the rapid growth in the number of lawyers, China has not only seen a rapid growth in the number of domestic lawyers and the number of branches, but also realised a strategic alliance with business law firms from Western countries, and has gained a certain degree of reputation and influence globally.

The diffusion of institutional innovations is only one perspective for understanding the globalisation of professions; another is to focus on the process of "hybridisation" of professional skills and social structures from different institutional and cultural contexts. In contrast to creative destruction, which is often used in anthropology and sociology to study the interaction and integration of social symbols such as languages, cultures and institutions, the concept of hybridity emphasises not the domination of power between different actors in the globalisation process or the passive acceptance of global norms by developing countries, but rather the process of interactions between a diversity of expertise and institutional structures from different countries, and the integration and innovations that result from these interactions, and the integration and innovation that result from these interactions. Hybridity implies that the integration of cultures or institutions is not complete, much less the domination or subjugation of other cultures by one strong culture, but rather the creation of mixtures that resemble "hybrids", which reduces the barriers between different cultures.

For Chinese occupations in the dilemma of globalisation, the excessive pursuit of institutional innovation dissemination may not be the most effective mode of development. Compared with the global imperialist colonisation of Western professions, the relationship between Chinese professions and those of other developing countries has never been one of unidirectional domination, but rather one of equality, mutual benefit and common development. Therefore, while vigorously promoting China's vocational experience and professional skills to go abroad, it is necessary to focus on how these experiences and skills can be combined with the specific status quo of the country's professions in the different socio-cultural contexts of each country, so as to form hybrid professional skills and innovative institutional models in line with local needs, and thus gradually gain an advantageous position in competing with Western professions. Many developing countries, although relatively backward in terms of economy and science and technology, have a legal system and practical experience that is longer than the history of the socialist legal system in new China, and also have an advantage in terms of language and culture, working habits, and experience in international exchange relative to the professions of our country, which provides a good condition for the hybridisation of professional skills and institutional innovations. The phenomenon of hybridisation is more likely to occur in fields of practice based on normative or aesthetic epistemology, such as journalism, education, law and the arts, than in fields of practice that are more universal and scientific, such as engineering and information technology, where professional skills are inherently more pluralistic and local, making it difficult to transplant them directly from one country to another.

How, then, can Chinese occupations choose and adapt between the two main social processes of occupational globalisation, namely, the diffusion and hybridisation of institutional innovations? First, it is important to realise that the domestic endogenous occupational ecosystem and the global open occupational ecosystem are two separate yet partially overlapping social spaces. While most of our practitioners are confined to the domestic occupational ecosystem, there is a subsystem within many professions that specialises in foreign-related business. Professionals in this subsystem often also have a place in the global professional ecosystem. For example, while domestic corporate and individual clients dominate the work of professional services organisations such as finance, accounting, law and business consulting, almost all of the highest paid and most highly placed organisations and practitioners in these four professions are engaged in foreign-related business, and these professionals play a crucial intermediary role in the domestic and international double-cycle, as it is through their daily work that these two very different professional ecosystems are connected. Under the national policy of "Belt and Road", it is by giving full play to the role of these organisations and individuals as intermediaries between occupational systems that the expertise of "Made in China" will gradually gain global legitimacy in international economic and trade exchanges.

Second, in the course of various foreign-related vocational services, attention and emphasis should be paid to the mixing of professional skills between Chinese and foreign occupations and the fusion of the boundaries of occupational jurisdiction. In order to break the hegemony of Western professions on a global scale, professionals in developing countries must be made aware that the globalisation of Chinese professions is based on common development, and that China's superiority in economy, science and technology does not mean that the globalisation of Chinese-led professions will repeat the unidirectional creative destructive process of the kind that has been carried out by Anglo-America against developing countries. In contrast, the globalisation of China's professions is a two-way process of institutional hybridisation, which involves not only expanding the demand for vocational services around the world, but also paying attention to learning and absorbing the beneficial experiences of the professional development of various countries, respecting local systems and cultures, and then exploring the rules of the industry and the mode of cooperation in different countries to suit the local needs. Of course, the realisation of this mixed process will go through different paths in different parts of the world, giving rise to different jurisdictional solutions. In particular, for professions that are more normative or aesthetic in nature, such as education, law, and the arts, it is easier to achieve the mixing of professional skills and jurisdictional boundaries in countries and regions that are more similar to China's historical and cultural background, whereas in those countries with greater cultural differences, the process may take longer.

In addition to the processes of social interaction in global occupational ecosystems, another facet of understanding the double cycle of national and internationalisation in various occupational fields of work is the impact of these interactive processes on the development of domestic occupational ecosystems. Although globalisation and localisation are often pitted against each other in public opinion, for career development, globalisation inherently has its origins in the local experiences of certain countries, and so-called global standards and norms evolve in localised work practices in each country, even in developed countries, where the domestic occupational ecosystems have undergone many changes in the course of globalisation. For example, since the 1990s, finance, lawyers, accountants and other professions have been exploring the so-called "multidisciplinary practice", i.e., combining elite business firms in these interrelated professions to create so-called "one-stop shops". "One-stop shop" organisations. Although this institutional innovation mainly targets the foreign-related subsystems in the occupational ecosystems of various countries, its impact on the relevant occupations in some European and American countries has gone far beyond the foreign-related field, and has made changes to the work jurisdiction of the occupations, trade associations, and even vocational education. In developed Asian countries such as Japan, South Korea and Singapore, the expansion of Anglo-American career services has also triggered a loosening of domestic occupational jurisdiction and structural adjustments in vocational education.

Therefore, in the process of globalisation, a relatively mature domestic occupational ecosystem should maintain Luhmann's so-called cognitive openness, which not only absorbs all kinds of information and knowledge from the external environment, but also applies and transforms them effectively through the closed operation of the system, so as to transform "system perturbation" from the external environment into the driving force for the development and evolution of the occupational ecosystem itself. From this point of view, the operational closure and cognitive openness of our occupational ecosystem still need to be improved. Take the academic career as an example, some of China's institutions of higher education in recent years, a large number of learning from the United States of America's well-known colleges and universities of various management systems, such as academic committees, the separation of scientific research posts and teaching posts, "not to be promoted that is to leave" of the teachers of the long term employment system, etc., but the development of the academic career, these systems are the development of academic careers, are the operation of the system at the level of the transplantation of the Western system, and the development of the academic career. A consequence of this is that the career of teachers in China's colleges and universities has increased a lot of uncertainty, especially adding to the pressure and burden of young teachers. The reason for this is that it is under the pressure of various systems such as globalised university rankings and journal impact factors that the operational closure of the domestic academic career ecosystem has been broken. At the same time, this professional ecosystem lacks openness at the cognitive level, not only in the choice of research fields and topics, but also in recent years, due to the international situation and the impact of the new crown epidemic, international exchanges are also limited. In order to achieve the goal of high-quality development in the field of higher education business, it is necessary to construct a professional ecosystem that is more closed operationally and more open cognitively, and to insist on the system rules as our own, appropriately borrowing from rather than overly relying on foreign experience, and to be inclusive in the communication of information, strengthening exchanges and fusion of domestic and foreign academic knowledge and professional skills.

While promoting the globalisation of Chinese professions, it should also be recognised that the degree of internationalisation of any profession is limited, and that conflicts of jurisdiction between professions, like wars between countries, are originally a "turf war" rather than a linear expansion process. The industrial chain formed by the global division of labour divides various jurisdictional boundaries between professions in each country, and even the most competitive profession in the most powerful country can hardly cover every corner of the world with its own jurisdiction. The internationalisation of professions in China depends to a large extent on the changes in China's structural position in the world's political and economic system, and the rise in the country's level of economic development and geopolitical status is a necessary condition for the diffusion and mingling of innovations in the professions' specialised skills on a global scale. Therefore, for many growing professions, the continuous improvement of professional skills and the expansion of market demand for professional services in the domestic ecosystem are both a prerequisite for internationalisation and a requirement for the formation of a relatively secure jurisdiction in the field of practice in the face of the complexity and volatility of the international situation. In this way, if one day geopolitical changes have an impact on and constrain the domestic and international dual cycle, most occupations in China can continue to rely on the endogenous domestic occupational ecosystem for survival and development. Even in a relatively relaxed international environment, the development of Chinese professions overseas should abandon the symbolic strategy of rushing to developed Western countries or international metropolises and unilaterally pursuing sensational effects. Instead, we should start from our close neighbours and developing countries with similar cultures and work styles, gradually establish our own jurisdiction in the global professional ecosystem, and carry out systematic innovations in the existing ecosystem and international order, so as to contribute to the advancement of the new development pattern, and thus making substantial contributions to the promotion of high-level opening-up under the new development pattern.

Conclusion

Occupation is an important unit of analysis for understanding high-quality development in the new development pattern from the perspective of social science research. In contrast to theoretical perspectives such as social stratification and class conflict, which emphasize structural divisions and antagonisms between different groups, the central concern of occupational sociology is the connection, interaction and integration between different groups in modern societies where the division of labour is highly developed. More than a hundred years after Turgot's vision of occupational groups as the most important group for achieving organic solidarity in modern societies, and as a reflexive bond between the state and the individual, this beautiful ideal of social solidarity has long since been overwhelmed by the various economic and political tides that have taken place on a global scale. As the division of labour continues to expand and refine, professions have become more utilitarian and socially closed, and technological developments have made expertise in some areas of business appear more and more standardized, intelligent and digitized, while those professionals who perform the day-to-day work of their profession seem to be less important.

However, the discussion in this paper amply demonstrates that improving the professional skills of various occupational groups is a fundamental guarantee of high-quality development, and that high-quality professional skills do not necessarily have to be highly standardised or rationalised, but rather have to be based on the professional autonomy of the professionals, and be formed through the accumulation of long-term practical experience and social interactions between different occupations in the various ecosystems and food chains of the occupational system. Whether it is a domestic macrocycle or a domestic and international double cycle, for all professions in our country it means not only constructing and maintaining their own social closure, but also breaking it to a certain extent, in order to find their own place in the professional ecosystem through interaction with other professions. The intent of the division of labour is not to seek similarities between occupations, but rather their diversity and interdependence, and the paradigm shift in China's sociological research from traditional issues such as social stratification and urban-rural differences to new issues such as occupational groups and professional skills must begin with an understanding of the diversity and interdependence of the professional skills produced by different kinds of labour.

The analytical framework of occupational ecosystem proposed in this paper starts from the basic concepts of occupational division of labour and professional skills, and through the analysis and discussion of the process of constructing occupational ecosystem in the context of the domestic macrocycle and the domestic and international double-cycle, it can fully explain the importance of professional skills and occupational groups in realizing high-quality development and provide some basic concepts and ideas for future in-depth research on the social structure, work, and interaction process of various occupational groups in China. For Chinese social science research in the new era, while focusing on the various grand narratives of national policies, it is also important to focus on concretising and theorising the meaning of these policies, observing, recording and interpreting the process of social interactions between individuals and groups in their daily lives and workplaces, and then understanding the social structures and cultures that result from these interactive processes. For professions, the fundamental element of culture is professional skills, and social structures include both the internal structures of occupational groups, such as educational systems and trade organisations, and the various forms of jurisdictional boundaries and exchange of power resources between different professions. The discussion in this paper has been centred on professional skills because, although structural institutional change is relatively easy to achieve, the construction, shaping and transmission of professional culture is more crucial to improving the quality of professional work and achieving high-quality development and innovation.

The relentless pursuit of high-quality professional skills is particularly important in an era of uncertainty in the domestic and international political and economic environments, where the instability of macro-social structures is becoming more pronounced, and where occupations are facing the rapid evolution of ecosystems and food chains in the occupational ecosystem. Accordingly, social science research on occupations must go beyond the analysis of policies, institutions and organisational structures, and focus on the diverse and innovative professional skills emerging in the process of China's occupational development in the new era, and explore new empirical issues and theoretical paradigms in the process of social interactions related to these skills. Only in this way can we go beyond the traditional problem consciousness and analytical framework of occupational sociology as defined by the Western academia over the past hundred years, and develop a brand new Chinese school of thought in the 21st century through the social science research on the high-quality development of various occupations in China under the new development pattern.