Handling Different Institutional Logics in the Public Sector: Comparing Management in Norwegian Universities and Hospitals
ISBN: 978-1-78560-275-7, eISBN: 978-1-78560-274-0
Publication date: 4 January 2016
Abstract
In this study, we are addressing changes in managerial logics after the introduction of New Public Management (NPM)-reforms in two public sectors in Norway, namely the hospital and the university sectors. These sectors were previously dominated by professional and political logic in management, and the focus is on professionals in managerial positions. We are asking: How do professionals in managerial positions across universities and hospitals mediate between previous and newly introduced logics in management after NPM-reforms? We have chosen to compare changes in management across the hospital and the university sectors. Both sectors are largely publicly owned and dominated by professions, but their mission differs. The empirical material comprises interviews with formal leaders from dissimilar professional backgrounds, at different levels in the organisations in two cases. The findings show that management influenced by the market logic has been introduced, but in a hybrid version. The professional logic has however not been left behind, but expanded and supplied by a neo-bureaucratic logic. Leadership is functioning as a ‘catalyst’ to handle the different logics. The originality of this paper is a comparison of management in health care and higher education related to a model of hybrid management.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements
Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the 2014 EUROMED-conference, Kristiansand, 18–19 September 2014, a Brown Bag seminar hosted by the Department of Political Science and Management, University of Agder, 13 May 2015, and the 2015 EGOS-conference, Athens, 2–4 July 2015. The authors would like to thank the participants for useful comments. We also thank the volume's editors and reviewers for insightful suggestions, which have vastly improved the paper. Any remaining errors are our own.
Citation
Berg, L.N. and Pinheiro, R. (2016), "Handling Different Institutional Logics in the Public Sector: Comparing Management in Norwegian Universities and Hospitals", Towards A Comparative Institutionalism: Forms, Dynamics And Logics Across The Organizational Fields Of Health Care And Higher Education (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 45), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 145-168. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20150000045018
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2016 Emerald Group Publishing Limited