Ownership power and managing a professional workforce: General practitioners and the employment of physician associates
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Date
2022
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Abstract
The management of the professions has become increas ingly challenging, reflecting the emergence of new work
roles in professionalized workplaces. Human Resource
Management (HRM) scholars have, however, been slow
to study the professions, particularly how the power they
derive from ownership interacts with other forms of power.
This article explores the use of different forms of power by
a profession, general practitioners (GPs), in engaging with a
new healthcare role, the physician associate (PA). Despite
policy support for the role, we find GPs' employment of
the role in primary care is low. This is explained by two GP
responses to the introduction of the role: employment denial
and subordination. We theorize these responses as deriving
from GPs' ownership power, enhancing their managerial and
knowledge-based control over PAs. In doing so, we open-up
a research avenue in the study of workforce management
focused on professions' ownership power
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Keywords
healthcare, ownership