Document Type

Article

Publication Date

3-29-2022

Publication Title

Healthcare

Volume

10

Issue

4

First page number:

1

Last page number:

13

Abstract

This study integrates two competing views to examine whether medical doctors are satisfied with their jobs when they perceive their hospitals as being oriented toward profit (i.e., rational choice theory) or purpose (i.e., public service motivation). Using a sample of 127 doctors from 70 hospitals, this study tests these competing views. The results show that doctors who perceive their hospitals as purpose-driven are likely to experience job satisfaction, and this pattern still holds even if they also perceive their hospitals to be emphasizing profits. However, only the purpose-driven orientation results in job satisfaction via a sense of meaningfulness. Thus, this study offers comprehensive evidence that while medical doctors are likely to be satisfied with their jobs when they work at either purpose-driven or profit-driven hospitals, only purpose-driven hospitals give doctors a sense of meaningfulness. This finding suggests that both rational choice theory and public service motivation perspective are valid; however, public service motivation plays a greater role in terms of a sense of meaningfulness. Theoretical contributions and practical implications are discussed.

Keywords

Medical doctors; Profit; purpose; Rational choice theory; Public service motivation; Meaningfulness; Job satisfaction

Disciplines

Business Administration, Management, and Operations | Health and Medical Administration | Organizational Behavior and Theory

File Format

pdf

File Size

427 KB

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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