Assembling Health Care Organizations. Practice, Materiality and Institutions

Book, 2012

The health care sector is the largest sector of the economy in most developed countries. With ageing populations in Europe and North-America, the health sector is expected to undergo significant changes in the future as it needs to handle more patients within stable budgets. Given its weight and importance in economic and financial terms and its importance for citizens, the health care sector has been extensively studied in various disciplines, including management studies. In many cases, health care organizations are examined from a systems theory perspective or a field of professional expertise and jurisdictional struggles. Assembling Health Care Organizations: Practices, Materialities, and Institutions integrates an institutional theory perspective and a materialist view of the technologies, devices, biological specimens, and other material resources mobilized and put to work in health care work.