The contested terrain of hospital management: professional projects and healthcare reforms in Denmark

Although much has been written on the changing management of professional services organizations, only limited attention has been given to the way in which management itself might represent a contested terrain. Drawing on concepts from the sociology of professions, this article develops this idea in relation to the Danish hospital sector. The analysis of secondary sources reveals how, from the mid-1980s, both the nursing and medical professions in Denmark actively sought to lay claim to the jurisdiction of hospital management. The result of this struggle was to further reinforce the dominant position of doctors in the clinical division of labour although the position of nurses has also been enhanced. Such findings point to the need to give more attention to the way broader changes in hospital governance are mediated by interprofessional struggles and rivalries. Such struggles, in turn, have implications not only for the division of labour and status order between professions but also for the way management work itself is enacted.