Same Position, Different Roles? How Professional, Organizational, and Public Policy Logics Shape Frontline Managers’ Role Conceptions

This article integrates street-level bureaucracy and institutional logics theory to investigate how co-existing institutional logics shape frontline managers’ understanding of their managerial role. Based on 21 narrative interviews with managing medical doctors from 11 Danish public hospitals, the analysis shows that, although their formal positions are identical on paper, individual frontline managers understand their role in surprisingly different ways. The article contributes to extant scholarship by demonstrating that co-existing professional, organizational, and public policy logics are not only sources of cross-pressure; they also constitute important resources that allow frontline managers to conceptualize and enact different versions of their managerial role.