Management Control Practices and Clinician Managers: The Case of the Norwegian Health Sector

This paper provides an analysis of the relationship between different management control practices and the leadership of medical departments in Norway. There has been ongoing debate about how the medical profession absorbs accounting knowledge: some argue that there has been hybridization, while others consider it as polarization. The explanation provided in this paper details the management control practices that health care enterprises use. We draw on two of the control perspectives in Simons's model of ladders of control: namely, diagnostic and interactive controls. The study thus provides insights into the problem of influencing clinician managers to use management accounting practices.

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