Foretak eller fag? En kvantitativ studie av sammenhengen mellom ledelsesfilosofi og jobbtilfredshet hos leger i norske sykehus

Abstract

Due to increased health expenditure, western democracies have been implementing NPMinspired healthcare reforms to deal with the amounting financial pressure. Professional leadership with business-like management styles is one of the tools used to reach the health care organization’s goals. This has challenged the role, identity and autonomy of medical professionals. Previous studies show that leadership is associated with job satisfaction – an important factor for organizational success. Leadership styles and job satisfaction is also shown to have a great impact on an employee’s turnover intention. High job satisfaction is crucial to avoid turnover, which leads to unwanted extra costs. This master thesis has, through OLS-analysis, examined the influence of two kinds of leadership styles on Norwegian physicians job satisfaction. The analysis was performed within the context of the Norwegian hospital sector, and based on a survey of a representative sample of hospital physicians in 2016. The findings indicate a strong positive significant relationship between a health professional supportive leadership style and job satisfaction. On the contrary, this inquiry finds no significant evidence of an economic administrative leadership style being associated with low job satisfaction. However, there is a negative significant correlation between those physicians that consider the re-organization of the hospital sector, where the hospitals are run as individual enterprises, as very troubling and job satisfaction.