Physicians’ professional autonomy and their organizational identification with their hospital

Abstract

BackgroundManaging medical professionals is challenging because professionals tend to adhere to a set of professional norms and enjoy autonomy from supervision. The aim of this paper is to study the interplay of physicians’ professional identity, their organizational identity, and the role of professional autonomy in these processes of social identification.MethodsWe test hypotheses generated according to social identity theory using a survey of physicians working in public hospitals in Italy in 2013.ResultsHigher degrees of organizational and economic professional autonomy are correlated with higher organizational identification. Identification with the profession is positively correlated with identification with the organization.ConclusionsAlthough the generalizability of our results is limited, this study suggests that organizations should support the organizational and economic autonomy of their physicians to project an organizational identity that preserves the continuity of a doctor’s self-concept and that is evaluated as positive by doctors. As a result, organizations will be able to foster organizational identification, which is potentially capable of inducing pro-social organizational behavior.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12913-018-3582-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The Microfoundations of Physicians’ Managerial Attitude

“…The results show that the higher that one's organizational identi cation is, the higher the likelihood that a given physician will develop a managerial attitude. This extends the results of Salvatore et al's [29] study on organizational identi cation. This research seems to suggest that when doctors-managers actively take part in the strategic goals of the organization to which they belong and they have a strong focus on the strategic and entrepreneurial activities in line with their double role, this in turn implies the development of the managerial side of their work.…”

“…Another individual psychological trait related to the self-concept and that has received more attention recently -but nevertheless requires further study -is physicians' organizational identi cation with their hospital [29]. Organizational identi cation concerns the extent to which an individual's self-concept contains attributes identical to those of the perceived organizational identity.…”

Building Cohesion in Distributed Telemedicine Teams Findings from the Department of Veterans Affairs National Telestroke Program

“…4 Moreover, Salvatore reported that greater professional autonomy perceived by physicians was associated with greater organizational identity and pro-social organizational behavior by the clinicians. 43 In our study, the virtual stroke specialists reported a strong sense of professional autonomy and both organizational (NTSP) and broader VA identity.…”

Physicians’ perceptions of autonomy support during transition to value-based reimbursement: A multi-center psychometric evaluation of six-item and three-item measures

“…In contexts where concerns about limiting costs and/or respondent burden are outweighed by the need for deeper exploration of various facets of autonomy support, future studies should validate elongated versions of the PPAS scale by incorporating extra items to capture multiple dimensions of the construct. Items capturing support towards each of the three distinct facets of work autonomy (method autonomy, scheduling autonomy, and work criteria autonomy) proposed by Breaugh [117] and others, [118,119] as well as towards social/economic work autonomy and administrative work autonomy, [59] which were not the focus of this study, could be tested as part of a multidimensional version of the scale.…”

“…[58] Salvatore et al's three-level perspective encompasses (a) clinical work autonomy, (b) social or economic work autonomy, and (c) influence on organizational decisions. [59] In the present study, we focused on support for clinical rather than administrative or social/economic work autonomy. We anchored our framing of autonomy support on these behaviors: [38] acknowledgment of physicians' perspectives/feelings, providing rationale for any proposed changes, constructive informational feedback to physicians, and overall support towards physicians' initiatives, choices, and medical decision-making.…”