Bureaucratization and medical professionals’ values : a cross-national analysis

Understanding the impact of the bureaucratization of governance systems on the occupational values of medical professionals is a fundamental concern of the sociological research of healthcare professions. While previous studies have examined the impact of bureaucratized management, organizations, and healthcare fields on medical professionals’ values, there is a lack of cross-national research on the normative impact of the bureaucratized systems of national governance. Using the European Social Survey data for 29 countries, this study examines the impact of the bureaucratization of national governance systems on the occupational values of medical professionals. The findings indicate that medical professionals who are employed in countries with the more bureaucratized systems of national governance are less concerned with openness to change values, that emphasize autonomy and creativity, and self-transcendence values, that emphasize common good. The findings also indicate that the negative effect of the bureaucratization of national governance on the openness to change values is stronger for medical professionals in more bureaucratized organizations with more rationalized administration systems

The values of economics

This study addresses a fundamental concern of research on economic ethics by examining the values of economics. While other studies have linked the study of economics to the adoption of rational economic behavior, this study goes one level deeper, investigating the values that underpin neoclassical economics and whether they are transmitted to students. We find that the study of economics is associated with an increase in hedonism and power values, a decrease self-direction value, and possibly a decrease in universalism value. We measure value change among economics students using a quasi-experimental research design in accordance with the methodology of research on academic socialization. We discuss the practical implications of the internalization of economic values

Does economic rationalization decrease or increase accounting professionals’ occupational values?

Following corporate accounting scandals there has been an increasing concern with understanding the factors that undermine the occupational values of accounting professionals, which emphasize self-transcendence in the pursuit of public good and openness to change in the pursuit of autonomy and creativity. Prior studies have demonstrated that these values are undermined in economically rationalized organizational environments. Our study advances this research by examining how accounting professionals’ occupational values are influenced by the economic rationalization of countries where they are employed. While economic rationalization of countries is recognized as a key macro-structural, social-level influence on individual values, the theory is divided regarding its normative effects. While economic rationalization may decrease the priority of occupational values by transforming professional action in accordance with the calculative logic of economic rationality, it can also increase the priority of these values by providing resources necessary for freeing professionals form the material constraints of survival. We test these divergent insights using the European Social Survey data for 28 countries. Our results indicate that economic rationalization decrease accountants’ occupational values beyond the effects of cultural values and work-related characteristics

Values of bureaucratic work

While understanding values of bureaucratic work has been a fundamental concern of organizational sociology, research has remained divided over the nature of the values that underpin it. Examining the more generalized sociological insights on the values of bureaucratic work using a rigorous approach to value measurement, this study contributes to the reconciliation of the divergent conceptual insights on these values. Using the European Social Survey data of highly rationalized societies, this study finds employed senior managers to place systematically higher value on self-enhancement and openness to change and lower value on self-transcendence and conservation than their self-employed, entrepreneurial counterparts. The study also contributes to the understanding of the values of bureaucratic work, by examining the value implications of the duration of the employment of senior managers in bureaucratic organizations, and the organizational and the managerial bureaucratization of their work

Developing collaborative professionalism : an investigation of status differentiation in academic organizations in knowledge transfer partnerships

In recent years there has been a significant growth in knowledge transfer partnerships to improve the quality and timeliness of healthcare. These activities require an increasing level of interdependence between academic and healthcare professionals, with important implications for human resource management. To understand these knowledge transfer partnerships, we conducted an in-depth longitudinal study based on 99 interviews and 5 focus-group workshops across academic and healthcare professionals in nine university-based knowledge transfer partnerships in England. We explore how academic professionals of lower and higher status organizations develop a new form of professional work, based on the principles of collaborative professionalism, during their involvement in partnerships with healthcare professionals. We illuminate how the interdependent work between academic professionals and healthcare professionals in the development of a new academic specialization is shaped by the status of their organization

Knowledge exchange in the UK CLAHRCs : the enabling role of academics and clinicians’ social position

Purpose The goal of this study is to examine how knowledge exchange between academics and clinicians in CLAHRCs is influenced by their social position based on their symbolic and social capitals,—that is, their personal professional status and connections to high-status professional peers, knowledge brokers, and unfamiliar professional peers. Design/methodology/approach Using an online survey, we triangulate the cross-sectional measurement of the effects of academic and clinicians’ social position in the initial and later phases of CLAHRCs with the longitudinal measurement of these effects over a two-year period. Findings First, academics and clinicians with a higher personal professional status are more likely to develop joint networks and decision-making both in the early and later phases of a CLAHRC. Second, academics and clinicians who are more connected to higher-status occupational peers are more likely to develop joint networks in the early phase of a knowledge exchange partnership but are less likely to become engaged in joint networks over time. Third, involvement of knowledge brokers in the networks of academics and clinicians is likely to facilitate their inter-professional networking only in the later partnership phase. Practical implications Academics and clinicians’ capitals have a distinctive influence on knowledge exchange in the early and later phases of CLAHRCs and on a change in knowledge exchange over a two-year period. Originality/value Prior research on CLAHRCs has examined how knowledge exchange between academics and clinicians can be encouraged by the creation of shared governance mechanisms. We advance this research by highlighting the role of their social position in facilitating knowledge exchange

On the normative consequences of economic rationality : a case study of a Swedish economics school in Latvia

The present study explores the normative consequences of economics education at the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga (SSER), a Swedish government sponsored highly selective economics school in Latvia. Following Tonnies’ ([1887] 1996) theory of action derived from logical relations between means and ends, the present study explores value change among economics students using the state-of-the-art empirical approach to value measurement (Schwartz, 1992) in a methodologically rigorous longitudinal research design. The study is based on a self-administered 2-year in-class longitudinal survey of economics undergraduates at the Swedish School and a comparison group of their academic counterparts from the two leading Latvian universities. Controlling for the influences of the demographic composition of student population, the study reveals a systematic and distinctive pattern of value change among economics students at the Swedish School. During the 2 years of economics education at the School, students experience an increase in the importance attributed to status-oriented values that conceptually tap motivational content of instrumental rationality. The findings of the study also suggest that the identified pattern of value change cannot be conceived as a consequence of student self-selection into the economics programme

The role of technical progress, professionalization and Christian religion in occupational gender segregation : a cross-national analysis

Studies have linked cross-national variations in occupational gender segregation with various economic, social and normative characteristics of countries. This study contributes to the research on the role of normative or ‘cultural’ characteristics by examining the influence of the level of technical progress, professionalization and Christian religion on cross-national variations in occupational gender segregation. The analysis is based on a sample of 33 countries. Variations in gender distribution are assessed using a reliable measure of occupational segregation, marginal matching. The analysis uses recent survey data (collected between 2002 and 2006) and a differentiated occupational classification scheme at the ISCO-88 3-digit level. Controlling for other confounding influences, the study finds higher occupational segregation of sexes in countries with higher levels of technical progress and in countries where Catholicism or Protestantism is a dominant religion