pemThe professionalization of public administration is most often examined through normative standards and reform models aimed at building a competent, stable, and politically neutral civil service. However, such approaches provide limited insight into how professional requirements are operationalized under real conditions of public sector functioning, particularly in the context of long-term financial and managerial constraints characteristic of post-socialist countries. Addressing this analytical gap, the paper develops a conceptual framework that treats professionalization not as a single reform outcome, but as an institutional process shaped by financial management and human resource management practices. Particular attention is devoted to distinguishing between formal professionalization, based on normative rules and institutional standards, and operational professionalization, which emerges through everyday administrative decisions and organizational practices. Using a theoretical-analytical approach, the paper identifies four patterns of operational professionalizationmdash;procedural, defensive, selective, and project-basedmdash;which are interpreted as institutional responses to limited financial and managerial capacities and complex politico-administrative relations. The analysis also acknowledges the role of public sector accounting frameworks and related professional standards as institutional instruments that support transparency, accountability, and control within public financial management, thereby influencing the operational scope of public administration professionalization. The findings indicate that professional standards are applied, adapted, and reinterpreted differently in practice, depending on institutional capacities. The paper contributes by conceptualizing operational professionalization as the practical expression of public administration professionalization and by developing a model that links normative standards, the financial framework, and human resource management practices with professionalization outcomes in terms of efficiency and fairness./em/p
Poljašević et al. (Mon,) studied this question.