Purpose – This paper seeks to explore the legitimacy of budgets as management control processes in hospitals after comprehensive reforms were implemented in the Norwegian hospital sector in 2002. Design/methodology/approach – The paper employs qualitative interviews with top level clinical...

Purpose – The hospital sector in Norway has been continuously reorganized since 2002 and the reforms have created organizations that are functionally/vertically controlled, whereas the production lines are coordinated on a process or a lateral basis. The purpose of this paper is to focus on...