IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/pubmgr/v9y2007i1p67-85.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Systems of interdependency and core orchestrating themes at health care unit level

Author

Listed:
  • Lise Lamothe
  • Yvon Dufour

Abstract

Configuration is an appealing concept to help understanding the complex arrangements that guide organizations' actions and contribute to their coherence. Although health care organizations are often described as professional bureaucracy a deep understanding of their structure and systems is still lacking. In this article, we draw on empirical data gathered in a Canadian teaching hospital to expose the nature of interdependencies and themes that drive some of its configurations at health care unit level. Five clinical activities were investigated (ocular surgery, brachytherapy, vascular surgery, rheumatology and geriatrics) using direct systematic observation. Four sub-orchestrating themes emerged. Based on the findings it is argued that the operating core of health care organizations is not homogeneous but rather heterogeneous. Therefore it is our contention that hospitals and other public organizations where professionals control the activities at operating level might be better regarded as ‘diversified professional federation’ than as professional bureaucracy.

Suggested Citation

  • Lise Lamothe & Yvon Dufour, 2007. "Systems of interdependency and core orchestrating themes at health care unit level," Public Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(1), pages 67-85, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:pubmgr:v:9:y:2007:i:1:p:67-85
    DOI: 10.1080/14719030601181225
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/14719030601181225
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/14719030601181225?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pettigrew, Andrew & Massini, Silvia & Numagami, Tsuyoshi, 2000. "Innovative forms of organising in Europe and Japan," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 259-273, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Steffie Lucidarme & Greet Cardon & Annick Willem, 2016. "A Comparative Study of Health Promotion Networks: Configurations of determinants for network effectiveness," Public Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(8), pages 1163-1217, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:bla:jomstd:v:40:y:2003:i:3:p:609-616 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Colin Hales, 2005. "Rooted in Supervision, Branching into Management: Continuity and Change in the Role of First‐Line Manager," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(3), pages 471-506, May.
    3. Caliz, Cristina & Quintanilla, Javier & Pin, Jose R., 2001. "Influencia de la nueva economía en la dirección de personas," IESE Research Papers D/440, IESE Business School.
    4. Mike Pedler, 2012. "All in a knot of one another's labours: self-determination, network organising and learning," Action Learning: Research and Practice, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(1), pages 5-28, March.
    5. Schweiger, David M. & Atamer, Tugrul & Calori, Roland, 2003. "Transnational project teams and networks: making the multinational organization more effective," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 127-140, May.
    6. Jean Hartley & Michael J. R. Butler & John Benington, 2002. "Local Government Modernization: UK and Comparative Analysis from an Organizational Perspective," Public Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(3), pages 387-404, January.
    7. Astadi Pangarso, 2020. "A New Theoretical Framework of Organizational Effectiveness from Knowledge and Ambidexterity Perspectives," GATR Journals jmmr257, Global Academy of Training and Research (GATR) Enterprise.
    8. Fariza ACHCAOUCAOU & Merce BERNARDO & Jose M. CASTAN, 2009. "Determinants of Organisational Structures: An Empirical Study," REVISTA DE MANAGEMENT COMPARAT INTERNATIONAL/REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL COMPARATIVE MANAGEMENT, Faculty of Management, Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania, vol. 10(3), pages 566-577, July.
    9. Felipe A. Csaszar, 2013. "An Efficient Frontier in Organization Design: Organizational Structure as a Determinant of Exploration and Exploitation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(4), pages 1083-1101, August.
    10. Christian Rupietta & Johannes Meuer & Uschi Backes-Gellner, 2018. "How do apprentices moderate the influence of organizational innovation on the technological innovation process?," Economics of Education Working Paper Series 0145, University of Zurich, Department of Business Administration (IBW), revised Jan 2021.
    11. Gabriel Sorin STROE, 2014. "On The Threat Of Suppliers For The Engineering Consulting And Design Services Firms," Risk in Contemporary Economy, "Dunarea de Jos" University of Galati, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, pages 140-149.
    12. Massini, Silvia & Lewin, Arie Y. & Numagami, Tsuyoshi & Pettigrew, Andrew M., 2002. "The evolution of organizational routines among large Western and Japanese firms," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(8-9), pages 1333-1348, December.
    13. Angel J. Salazar Alvarez, 2003. "Managing Knowledge Flows between High-Tech Firms and Universities: Empirical Evidence from the Biotechnology Industry in the UK," Journal of Information & Knowledge Management (JIKM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 2(04), pages 309-319.
    14. John Sillince & Paula Jarzabkowski & Duncan Shaw, 2012. "Shaping Strategic Action Through the Rhetorical Construction and Exploitation of Ambiguity," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(3), pages 630-650, June.
    15. N A D Connell & J H Klein & P L Powell, 2003. "It's tacit knowledge but not as we know it: redirecting the search for knowledge," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 54(2), pages 140-152, February.
    16. Richard M. Burton & Borge Obel, 2013. "Design rules for dynamic organization design: the contribution of computational modeling," Chapters, in: Anna Grandori (ed.), Handbook of Economic Organization, chapter 13, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    17. Ali Mohammadi & Hossein Karami, 2014. "The Role of Universities in Innovation Development as Trainer and Innovator," International Journal of Management Sciences, Research Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 3(7), pages 471-486.
    18. Paolo Pini & Grazia Santangelo, 2005. "Innovation types and labour organisational practices: A comparison of foreign and domestic firms in the Reggio Emilia industrial districts," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(4), pages 251-276.
    19. Haji Ali Beigi, Maryam, 2021. "Organizational innovation: Interactive role of external knowledge strategies and market dynamisms," Ilmenau Economics Discussion Papers 159, Ilmenau University of Technology, Institute of Economics.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:pubmgr:v:9:y:2007:i:1:p:67-85. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RPXM20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.