How Institutional Logics Inform Emotional Labour: An Ethnography of Junior Doctors

Priyanka Vedi, Marek Korczynski and Simon Bishop
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Priyanka Vedi: University of Roehampton, UK
Marek Korczynski: University of Nottingham, UK
Simon Bishop: University of Nottingham, UK

Work, Employment & Society, 2025, vol. 39, issue 1, 163-184

Abstract: Sociological analysis of emotional labour can be aided by considering how institutional logics inform the performance of emotional labour. We consider the link between institutional logics and emotional labour by conducting an in-depth case study of junior doctors in a large UK hospital. We point to three key institutional logics – bureaucratic, consumerist and professional logics – and show how they inform the emotional labour of junior doctors. We also consider how doctors respond to these logics through enactment processes of choice, resistance and negotiation. In this way, we make an important theoretical contribution by identifying the way that institutional logics relate to the performance of emotional labour. We also make an important empirical contribution by contributing to a growing body of ethnographies on the emotional labour of doctors.

Keywords: emotional labour; institutional logics; medicine (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:woemps:v:39:y:2025:i:1:p:163-184

DOI: 10.1177/09500170231225615

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