Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

4-2017

Abstract

We investigate how established professionals manage their identities in the face of identity threats from a contested shift in the professional logic that characterizes their field. To do so, we draw on interviews with 113 physicians from five European transition countries who faced pressure for change in their professional identities due to a shift in the logic of healthcare from a logic of "narrow specialism" in primary care that characterized the Soviet health system to a new logic of "generalism" that characterizes primary care in the West. We found three important forms of professional identity threats experienced by physicians during this period - professional values conflict, status loss, and social identity conflict. In addition, we identified three forms of identity work - authenticating, reframing, and cultural repositioning - that the professionals who successfully transitioned to the new identity performed in order to reconstruct their professional identities so that they were aligned with the new logic. Based on these findings, we present a model of how established professionals change their professional identities as a result of a contested shift in the professional logic of their field and discuss the underlying mechanisms through which this occurs.

Keywords

professional identites, physicians, doctors, healthcare

Discipline

Medicine and Health Sciences | Organizational Behavior and Theory | Strategic Management Policy

Research Areas

Strategy and Organisation

Publication

Academy of Management Journal

Volume

60

Issue

2

First Page

610

Last Page

641

ISSN

0001-4273

Identifier

10.5465/amj.2013.0684

Publisher

Academy of Management

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2013.0684

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