The effectiveness of the reforms of the health sector in New Zealand will depend on the development of new accounting and information systems. The reforms have been rapid and significant. Increasing attention is being given to the development of costing and budgeting as a part of the reform...

The Mental Health Act Commission (MHAC) is a “watchdog” body concerned with the rights of detained psychiatric patients in England and Wales. It was created by the UK government as a “quasi‐governmental” body in an ad hoc manner to defuse the controversy engendered by competing...

Focuses on the critical role played by professionals in the management of health‐care institutions in the UK and Canada. Using empirical data, examines the structural models of clinical management, the roles of clinical managers and their relationships with colleague professionals. Compares...

Analyses the features, strategies and characteristics of health‐care reforms in the People’s Republic of China. Since the fourteenth Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party held in 1992, an emphasis has been placed on reform strategies such as cost recovery, profit making,...

Recent health reform in New Zealand has transformed public hospitals and related health services into Crown Health Enterprises (CHEs), which have a statutory objective to operate as successful and efficient businesses. Examines managerialist interpretations of a proposed executive information...

The planning and implementation of electronic information systems and technology (IS/IT) following the National Health Service (NHS) reforms in the UK are both widespread and significant. Considers these new organizational arrangements, for primary care general practitioners (GPs), to aid...

The purpose of this paper is twofold. The first part introduces a theoretical argument from Giddens to help explain the way in which accounting systems and systems of accountability have changed abruptly in New Zealand’s health care sector. The changes are proceeding, surrounded by controversy...

Efforts of governments to adjust the responsiveness and efficiency of their health care systems are evident across the globe. In the seemingly constant search for solutions providing both better health outcomes and manageable costs, the directions and designs for change are neither consistent...

Purpose – Internationally, management in medicine has become a topical issue in health care research and policy. Against this background, the purpose of this paper is to examine the changing role of doctors in the management of German hospitals. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to offer a personal interpretation of the nature and impact of alternative narratives of public management reform evident in the UK since the 1980s. These reforms are examined through the prism of alternative bodies of public management scholarship. They are...