Changes in regulation systems make professional organizations more likely to undergo rapid, profound and radical change. The issue of how micro-institutional change in professional organizations can be carried out is somewhat ignored.
We conducted a process study of a primary hospital in China to trace a pathway through which low-status professionals successfully proceed with radical change at the micro-level.
We present a model involving three strategies that, reconfiguring jurisdictional boundaries in combination, activate low-status professionals' long-standing implicit jurisdictions: expertise redefinition, value reorientation and promotion.
Our study contributes to understanding how low-status professionals reconcile needs for change with contradictions from the core attributes and ambiguities of professional work. Rather than mixed practices enhancing the role of dominant professions, a desire to separate jurisdiction space opens up the access of newly dominant experts.
Changes in the regulation system make professional organizations more likely to undergo rapid, profound and radical change. The issue of how micro-institutional change in professional organizations can be carried out is somewhat ignored.
