With an empirical focus on the health care sector, this dissertation addresses the questions on when, how and why professionals influence institutional change and stability. Specifically, this dissertation focuses on the institutional work efforts of different groups of health care professionals, namely physicians and nurses, within German health care. Given the significant regulatory dynamics that German health care experienced during the last decades, this setting provides a particularly favorable background for the study on when, why, and how professionals seek to create, maintain and disrupt institutions.
Elaborating on how professionals interact with the different contexts in which they are embedded, this thesis aims to provide a holistic picture of professionals’ engagement in institutional dynamics. In particular, this thesis contributes to the growing literature on the micro-processes of professionals’ institutional work within the diverse contexts in which these actors operate
