Inspection services and inter-rater reliability: Differentiating professional role identities of Dutch veterinary inspectors

©, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. Inter-rater reliability is a prominent topic within inspection services. We address inter-rater reliability as a problem beyond the technical concern for improving regulatory instruments. We combine theories on professionalism and identity theory to deal with an issue overlooked in much of the literature on regulation and inter-rater reliability: the potentially diverging ways inspectors perceive their professional role. Studying veterinary inspectors in the Dutch food safety services, our focus is on how we can empirically differentiate between different role identities and how these identities diverge from ideal-typical expectations the organization holds of its inspectors.status: publishe