Enterprise-wide systems enabling physicians to manage care
by Nilmini Wickramasinghe, Roberta Lamb
International Journal of Healthcare Technology and Management (IJHTM), Vol. 4, No. 3/4, 2002

Abstract: In their conceptualisation of the principal/agent relationship, Jensen and Meckling [1] were not referring to a Knowledge Worker agent. Given the prevalence of knowledge workers in today's workforce, we extend agency theory to the context of a Knowledge Worker (KW) agent. In doing so, we argue that a key role for enterprise-wide systems, in such a context, is in facilitating the monitoring function. To test this, we investigate the dynamics of a critical principal - KW agent relationship in the healthcare industry; namely that between the managed care organisation and primary care physician. Our case study data reveals that enterprise-wide systems adopted went beyond just alleviating the agency problem, as we predicted, to enabling the KW agent to perform a new function - ''self-monitoring''. Our results are significant to agency relationships and the use of enterprise-wide systems with knowledge workers.

Online publication date: Tue, 01-Jul-2003

The full text of this article is only available to individual subscribers or to users at subscribing institutions.

 
Existing subscribers:
Go to Inderscience Online Journals to access the Full Text of this article.

Pay per view:
If you are not a subscriber and you just want to read the full contents of this article, buy online access here.

Complimentary Subscribers, Editors or Members of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Healthcare Technology and Management (IJHTM):
Login with your Inderscience username and password:

Username:        Password:          Forgotten your password?

Want to subscribe?
A subscription gives you complete access to all articles in the current issue, as well as to all articles in the previous three years (where applicable). See our Orders page to subscribe.

If you still need assistance, please email subs@inderscience.com