Kim Putters

Bio: Kim Putters is an academic researcher from Erasmus University Rotterdam. The author has contributed to research in topics: Health care & Health policy. The author has an hindex of 15, co-authored 49 publications receiving 928 citations. Previous affiliations of Kim Putters include Tilburg University.

Griffins or Chameleons? Hybridity as a Permanent and Inevitable Characteristic of the Third Sector

Abstract: The term “third sector” is increasingly used, but it is also increasingly difficult to define. It is characterized by fragmentation, fuzziness, and constant change. Furthermore, the bordering domains of community, market, and state are equally difficult to define and are becoming more blurred. One may have to accept that hybridity and change are permanent features of the organizations and arrangements involved. They could be classified not with reference to the structural characteristics of abstract domains but on the basis of how they cope with conditions of hybridity and change. The search for a valid empirical definition of the third sector, however modestly ambitious, must focus on the fringes of the domain where the “hard cases” can be found—the phenomena that are most difficult to identify and therefore most likely to reveal what is essential to the different domains.

Co-production in healthcare: rhetoric and practice:

Abstract: Co-production in healthcare is receiving increasing attention; however, insight into the process of co-production is scarce. This article explores why hospitals involve patients and staff in co-production activities and hospitals’ experiences with co-production in practice. A qualitative study with semi-structured interviews (N = 27), observations (70 hours) and document analysis was conducted in five Dutch hospitals, which involved patients and staff in order to improve services. The results show that hospitals have different motives to involve patients and staff and have adapted existing methods to involve patients. Interestingly, areas of improvement proposed by patients were often already known. However, the process of co-production did contribute to quality improvement in other ways. The process of co-production stimulated hospitals’ thinking about how to realize quality improvements. Quality improvements were facilitated by this process as seeing patients and hearing their experiences created a sens...

On Justification Work: How Compromising Enables Public Managers to Deal with Conflicting Values

Abstract: ____ In the public administration literature, a variety of responses to value confl icts have been described, such as trade-off s, decoupling values, and incrementalism. Yet little attention has been paid to the possibility of constructive compromises that enable public managers to deal with confl icting values simultaneously rather than separately. Th e authors use Luc Boltanski and Laurent Th evenot’s theory of justifi cation to extend current conceptualizations of management of confl icting values. On the basis of a qualitative study of daily practices of Dutch health care managers (executives and middle managers), they show how compromises are constructed and justifi ed to signifi cant others. Because compromises are fragile and open to criticism, managers have to perform continuous “justifi cation work” that entails not only the use of rhetoric but also the adaption of behavior and material objects. By inscribing compromises into objects and behavior, managers are able to solidify compromises, thereby creating temporary stability in times of public sector change.

Organized professionalism in healthcare: articulation work by neighbourhood nurses

Abstract: Organizational and professional logics are often viewed as intrinsically conflicting. Organizational influences either encroach on professional work or professionals resist change and evade organizational rules. Increasingly however, this dualistic view is supplemented with the perspective of organized professionalism, which focuses on the negotiated and reciprocal relationship between organizational and professional logics. In this perspective, professionals increasingly engage in new organizational issues and incorporate those into their professional work. We build on these insights, but take the debate on organized professionalism one step further. Using the sociological concept of articulation work, we show that organizational tasks are not always ‘new’, but can be inherent to professionalism. In a study of Dutch neighbourhood nurses (NNs), we find three types of articulation work: intraprofessional, interprofessional, and lay articulation work. NNs perform articulation work to provide and organize care at the same time. They integrate taylorized home care services, coordinate the work of different professionals, and stimulate informal care. We conclude that articulation work traditionally lies at the heart of professionalism, but is not static and acquires new meaning because of changing organizational conditions and policy reforms.

Economy and Society

Abstract: The four Visegrad states — Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia (until 1993 Czechoslovakia) and Hungary — form a compact area between Germany and Austria in the west and the states of the former USSR in the east. They are bounded by the Baltic in the north and the Danube river in the south. They are cut by the Sudeten and Carpathian mountain ranges, which divide Poland off from the other states. Poland is an extension of the North European plain and like the latter is drained by rivers that flow from south to north west — the Oder, the Vlatava and the Elbe, the Vistula and the Bug. The Danube is the great exception, flowing from its source eastward, turning through two 90-degree turns to end up in the Black Sea, forming the barrier and often the political frontier between central Europe and the Balkans. Hungary to the east of the Danube is also an open plain. The region is historically and culturally part of western Europe, but its eastern Marches now represents a vital strategic zone between Germany and the core of the European Union to the west and the Russian zone to the east.

The New Public Governance? 1

Abstract: More than a decade has passed since the publication of Christopher Hood's influential piece that codified the nature of the New Public Management (NPM) (Hood 1991). At that time it seemed likely, c...

Social Enterprises as Hybrid Organizations:A Review and Research Agenda*

Abstract: The impacts of the global economic crisis of 2008, the intractable problems of persistent poverty and environmental change have focused attention on organizations that combine enterprise with an embedded social purpose. Scholarly interest in social enterprise (SE) has progressed beyond the early focus on definitions and context to investigate their management and performance. From a review of the SE literature, the authors identify hybridity, the pursuit of the dual mission of financial sustainability and social purpose, as the defining characteristic of SEs.They assess the impact of hybridity on the management of the SE mission, financial resource acquisition and human resource mobilization, and present a framework for understanding the tensions and trade-offs resulting from hybridity. By examining the influence of dual mission and conflicting institutional logics on SE management the authors suggest future research directions for theory development for SE and hybrid organizations more generally.