In: Journal of risk research: the official journal of the Society for Risk Analysis Europe and the Society for Risk Analysis Japan, Band 26, Heft 12, S. 1299-1313
Hospitals are increasing in size and complexity and hospital manage-ment is being professionalized. This paper aims to investigate how doctors engage in hospital management. Are doctors losing their influence? Based on a review of existing literature and data from a longitudinal study, we show that Norwegian doctors have seemingly lost some of their previous dominance in hospital manage-ment, as other professions have entered traditional areas of medical influence. However, we argue that doctors appear to regain an influential position in formal decision making by entering positions with higher potential for influence. We suggest an analytical approach that illustrates the changing engagement of doctors in management. Our paper contributes to the current and requested research on the relationship between medicine and management in European states.
State regulatory capacity is being threatened by internationalization, commercialization and persistent demand for public services. The article addresses the overarching question of how the state is changing due to recent public sector reforms. By studying changes in the regulation of the health care sector and the food sector in Norway, the article challenges the assumption that recent public sector reforms have necessarily led to a decline of the central state's regulatory strength. The conclusions are that the central state level has in fact been strengthened by regulatory reforms, by transferring authority to the state level and by enhancing the central administration's co‐ordinating and regulating capacity.