doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9299.2008.00746.x PROFESSIONAL POWER PLAY: ORGANIZING MANAGEMENT IN HEALTH CARE

Because of the managerialization of health care and the rise of health care managers, professionals and managers increasingly ‘ clash ’. To reduce clashes, managerial and professional domains have not only been (re)connected; they have also been restructured. Managers, in particular, have started to make sense of their own ‘ professionalism ’. Health care managers are professionalizing in order to cope with reform consequences. They have established professional associations, which establish educational programmes, journals, and codes of conduct, in order to defi ne and standardize man-agerial work. By tracing the evolution of a new profession of Dutch health care executives, and by studying its educational underpinnings, this article will analyse whether the professionalization of managers homogenizes occupational defi nitions and standards. It will show that managerial edu-cation masks ideological struggles over the substance of ‘ good ’ health care management. Different ‘ schools ’ have arisen, producing heterogeneity in executive circles