This book explores the hospital via organisational ethnography (OE), an approach that involves a mix of fieldwork methods designed to analyse the hospital which also includes participatory observation, qualitative interviews and shadowing. One way to define a hospital is by its high level of formal organisation, resulting in written or digital communication as the main source of communication in patient journals, minutes and medical and quality guidelines. In contrast, in this book, the aspects of the informal organisation will be the focus. In spite of the many formal regulations of healthcare, hospitals are also chaotic organising places where many different groups of people interact in order to negotiate, to practice and to make sense of daily work tasks. The underlying argument is that, in the mundane everyday life of hospitals, frontline workers and their interactions with patients and local managers remain at the core of organising hospitals. The overall purpose of this book is to report stories back from the field of healthcare, demonstrating how people, spaces and work (as examples of events) become important elements of organising hospitals. The book will be of interest to students and scholars in and across healthcare management, organisation studies, ethnography, sociology, qualitative methods, anthropology, service management and cultural studies.

This book explores the hospital via organisational ethnography (OE), an approach that involves a mix of fieldwork methods designed to analyse the hospital which also includes participatory observation, qualitative interviews and shadowing. One way to define a hospital is by its high level of formal organisation, resulting in written or digital communication as the main source of communication in patient journals, minutes and medical and quality guidelines. In contrast, in this book, the aspects of the informal organisation will be the focus. In spite of the many formal regulations of healthcare, hospitals are also chaotic organising places where many different groups of people interact in order to negotiate, to practice and to make sense of daily work tasks. The underlying argument is that, in the mundane everyday life of hospitals, frontline workers and their interactions with patients and local managers remain at the core of organising hospitals. The overall purpose of this book is to report stories back from the field of healthcare, demonstrating how people, spaces and work (as examples of events) become important elements of organising hospitals. The book will be of interest to students and scholars in and across healthcare management, organisation studies, ethnography, sociology, qualitative methods, anthropology, service management and cultural studies.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to radical transformations in the organisation and delivery of health and care services across the world. In many countries, policy makers have rushed to re-organise care services to meet the surge demand of COVID-19, from re-purposing existing services to creating new 'field' hospitals. Such strategies signal important and sweeping changes in the organisation of both 'COVID' and 'non-COVID' care, whilst asking more fundamental questions about the long-term organisation of care 'after COVID'. In some contexts, the pandemic has exposed the fragilities and vulnerabilities of care systems, whilst in others, it has shown how services are organised to be more resilient and adaptive to unanticipated pressures. The COVID-19 pandemic presents a rare opportunity to examine empirically and to develop new theoretical frameworks on how and why health systems adapt to such unusual and intense pressures. International contributors consider how responses to COVID-19 are transforming the organisation and governance of health and care services and explore questions around strategic leadership at local, regional, national and transnational level. The book offers unique insight and analysis on the dynamics of policy-making, the organisation and governance of care organisations, the role of technologies in governing, the changing role of professionals and the possibilities for more resilient care systems.

Managing Change is about implementing health care reforms, policies and programs into everyday practices. The book explores organizational change in health care as influenced by contemporary policy and management concepts, and presents and applies theoretical perspectives.

This book presents a new way of understanding organizational ethnography due to its strong emphasis on what the word organizational means in organizational ethnography. In the past five years, a new organizational studies research field has developed involving organizational ethnographies, which is when organizations are studied using ethnographical methods. This development has shed light on the methods and difficulties of organizational ethnography, and yet we argue that confusion still remains as to what organizational ethnographical approaches are. This edited volume offers students and scholars a profound understanding of organizational ethnography by presenting concrete examples, reflections and discussions of how to understand and adequately conceptualize the word organizational in organizational ethnography. All the chapters illustrate the work of analytically combining different organizational phenomena (e.g. strategy making, policymaking), analytical perspectives (e.g. sensemaking, narratives) and ethnographical methods (e.g. texts, observations, shadowing, interviews) and demonstrate different ways of doing organizational ethnography. At the end of each chapter, an experienced researcher in the field offers comments and discussion on the contributions of the chapter, providing reflections on the implications for research in the field to which they ascribe. In Doing Organizational Ethnography, organizational is defined as polyphonic ways of organizing based on the interactions of the many voices, discourses, practices and narratives in and around organizations and the book provides readers with in-depth reflections on what organizing and organizations become when doing organizational ethnography.

This book presents a new way of understanding organizational ethnography due to its strong emphasis on what the word organizational means in organizational ethnography. In the past five years, a new organizational studies research field has developed involving organizational ethnographies, which is when organizations are studied using ethnographical methods. This development has shed light on the methods and difficulties of organizational ethnography, and yet we argue that confusion still remains as to what organizational ethnographical approaches are. This edited volume offers students and scholars a profound understanding of organizational ethnography by presenting concrete examples, reflections and discussions of how to understand and adequately conceptualize the word organizational in organizational ethnography. All the chapters illustrate the work of analytically combining different organizational phenomena (e.g. strategy making, policymaking), analytical perspectives (e.g. sensemaking, narratives) and ethnographical methods (e.g. texts, observations, shadowing, interviews) and demonstrate different ways of doing organizational ethnography. At the end of each chapter, an experienced researcher in the field offers comments and discussion on the contributions of the chapter, providing reflections on the implications for research in the field to which they ascribe. In Doing Organizational Ethnography, organizational is defined as polyphonic ways of organizing based on the interactions of the many voices, discourses, practices and narratives in and around organizations and the book provides readers with in-depth reflections on what organizing and organizations become when doing organizational ethnography.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to radical transformations in the organisation and delivery of health and care services across the world. In many countries, policy makers have rushed to re-organise care services to meet the surge demand of COVID-19, from re-purposing existing services to creating new 'field' hospitals. Such strategies signal important and sweeping changes in the organisation of both 'COVID' and 'non-COVID' care, whilst asking more fundamental questions about the long-term organisation of care 'after COVID'. In some contexts, the pandemic has exposed the fragilities and vulnerabilities of care systems, whilst in others, it has shown how services are organised to be more resilient and adaptive to unanticipated pressures. The COVID-19 pandemic presents a rare opportunity to examine empirically and to develop new theoretical frameworks on how and why health systems adapt to such unusual and intense pressures. International contributors consider how responses to COVID-19 are transforming the organisation and governance of health and care services and explore questions around strategic leadership at local, regional, national and transnational level. The book offers unique insight and analysis on the dynamics of policy-making, the organisation and governance of care organisations, the role of technologies in governing, the changing role of professionals and the possibilities for more resilient care systems.

This Handbook provides an authoritative overview of current issues and debates in the field of health care management. It contains over twenty chapters from well-known and eminent academic authors, who were carefully selected for their expertise and asked to provide a broad and critical overview of developments in their particular topic area. The development of an international perspective and body of knowledge is a key feature of the book. The Handbook secondly makes a case for bringing back a social science perspective into the study of the field of health care management. It therefore contains a number of contrasting and theoretically orientated chapters (e.g. on institutionalism; critical management studies). This social science based approach is a refreshing alternative to much existing work in this domain and offers a good way into current academic debates in this field. The Handbook thirdly explores a variety of important policy and organizational developments apparent within the current health care field (e.g. new organizational forms; growth of management consulting in health care organizations). It therefore explores and comments on major contemporary trends apparent in the practice field.