Objects are invariably expressed in verb/target combinations. What do the verbs tell us? Do they signal important aspects of professional body aims?
By far the most common verb used was promote, accounting for 23% of all objects, with advance and support at 16% each and organise at 13%. None of the 10 other verbs we identified accounted for more than 7%. The two top verb/target combinations were to promote the knowledge base and advance the knowledge base. The next three most frequent combinations were to promote the profession, then promote standards and then promote education. This was a surprise. The emphasis on promote was consistent whether professional bodies were charities or chartered or regulatory bodies or none of these.
Promote suggests an active outward facing way to achieve aims, as to advocate or champion them. It is a verb particularly associated with trade associations, lobbyists and public relations organisations. This does not accord with the view of professional bodies by academics as modern-day guilds, suggesting they are conservative and inward-looking organisations providing support for their own members, their own profession and their own organisation. Rather it implies they are strategic and outward looking organisations taking an active role in promoting their knowledge base, their profession, its standards and education activities. The knowledge base was most impelled equally by promote and advance and then publish. The profession by far most impelled by promote, then advance and then support.
We must temper this view because of the range of meanings given for promote in dictionaries. The Oxford English Dictionary includes 14 current meanings for the verb promote. It can mean to move to a stronger or more prominent position. This can include furthering the growth, progress, or establishment of a thing; or to actively support a process, cause or result and also to put forth, move forward. In this latter meaning promote seems synonymous with advance, though this also reinforces the view of professional bodies taking an active, progressive stance in their objects.
Support or organise may be more expected if professional bodies were primarily targeting their own members. In fact, when members and practitioners are the targets, the most frequent verb used is support. However, as noted in my previous blog, members are the target for relatively few objects.