Doctors' reflexivity in hospital organisations

The nexus between institutional and behavioural dynamics in the sociology of professions

Bibliographic Data

ID2305936
AuthorsTiago Correia (0000-0001-6015-3314, Iscte – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume65
Issue7
Pages1050-1069
Publication date2017-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCurrent Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0011-3921 • E-ISSN: 1461-7064
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0011392116641478
OpenAlexW2339229540
LanguageEN
Citations received13
References cited40

This article seeks to provide a clearer picture of how the nexus between institutional and behavioural dynamics operates among doctors in hospital organisations. On the basis of qualitative, in-depth research conducted in a hospital organisation, with the focus on doctors from two wards, differences in their actions and discourses challenge the coherence associated with professional and organisational values found in the debates in the sociology of professions. Rather than denying these influences, the article relates them to the way professionals reflexively make use of their roles in situated circumstances. Therefore, it discusses not only the fact that the doctors' medical rationale is crisscrossed by a diversity of influences - ethics, management and the organisational culture and subcultures - but also that they make reflexive deliberations on the basis of interests related to specific contexts. The analysis builds on recent discussions in neo-institutionalism aligned with critical realism, in order to refine theoretical arguments on reflexivity while providing tools for future empirical research in the sociology of professions

Coherence (philosophical gambling strategy) · Critical realism (philosophy of perception) · Epistemology · Institutionalism · Nexus (standard) · Political science · Politics · Realism · Reflexivity · Situated · Social science · Sociology · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Critical Realism in Sociology · Law · Management and Organizational Studies

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub