Call for Papers: 

Consequences of Change in Healthcare for Organizations, Workers, and Patients 
A Mini-Conference and Avenue for Peer-Reviewed Publication

deadline extended to September 1st, 2018 

This call invites papers for a conference and subsequent special issue of Work & Occupations devoted to the consequences of change in healthcare for organizations, workers, and patients. Scholars interested in participating should submit a completed paper to the conference organizers and special issue co-editors Ariel C. Avgar (Cornell), Adrienne E. Eaton (Rutgers), Rebecca Givan (Rutgers), and Adam Seth Litwin (Cornell) by September 1st, 2018. Authors whose papers are accepted will be invited to a conference sponsored by the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University and the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University to be held in New Brunswick, New Jersey, on January 9-11, 2019.

Papers presented at this conference should be suitable for submission to external reviewers. Based on the organizers’ recommendations, discussions at the conference, and fit with the special issue, a subset of authors will be asked to submit their papers to Work & Occupations with the expectation that their papers will be published in the special issue once they pass the external review process. Papers that reviewers deem of good quality that are not selected for the special issue will be considered for publication in a regular issue of Work & Occupations.

Description

The healthcare industry in most developed and developing countries is experiencing comprehensive and consequential change. Mounting quality of care, financial, competitive, and workforce related pressures have required policy makers, healthcare organizations, and providers to rethink core features of the manner in which care is delivered, funded, and regulated. Many of the policy and workplace changes that are being experimented with have significant implications for patients, organizations, and their employees. Evidence of these effects has been documented by scholars representing a number of different disciplines. As such, conceptual and empirical insights about the consequences associated with a changing healthcare landscape are often not integrated across disciplinary boundaries.

The overarching goal of this mini-conference and its associated special issue is to facilitate a cross-disciplinary dialogue between scholars engaged in the study of organizations, work, and employment in the healthcare setting. In particular, we seek a scholarly exchange of ideas between healthcare policy researchers and employment relations and organizational researchers. We encourage submissions from scholars representing a wide range of disciplines including, but not limited to, industrial/employment relations, labor studies, human resource management, management, organizational behavior, sociology, economics, political science, public health, health policy, health services management/administration, and nursing.

Potential topic areas include, but are not limited to:

• comparative analyses of the workforce impact of national healthcare systems
• implications of the passage and possible repair, repeal, or replacement of the ACA
• workforce and health effects arising from privatization and outsourcing or from supplier consolidation
• newly-emerging models of care delivery
• technological change in the healthcare sector
• workforce and organizational mediators of the effectiveness of payment reforms
• determinants of wide-scale institutional change in the healthcare sector

Prospective contributors are urged to consult any of the organizers regarding preliminary proposals or ideas for papers. To submit your full paper for consideration for the conference and subsequent consideration for the special issue, please e-mail it to rutgerscornellhealthcareconference@cornell.edu by the September 1st, 2018 deadline. Authors will be informed of the status of their submissions by the September 15th.