Gendered organizational dynamics

Abstract

Australian governments have reported an impending ‘crisis’ with workforce shortages in the health sector expected to deepen over the next decade. The allied health professions, however, have barely rated a mention despite the fact their retention rates are low and they are expected to play an expanded and more preventive role in the future. This article examines current Australian public policy approaches to the allied health professions in relation to workforce shortages. It identifies the dominance of technocratic representations of the problem, noting that these have become more pervasive and robust with the New Public Management (NPM). Recent Australian sociological discussion suggests that technocratic ‘framing’ of allied health workforce shortages is limited by its failure to address the role of organizational and institutional dynamics. Such an analysis advances prevailing policy-based problematizations of allied health workforce shortages, but is itself constrained by the lack of acknowledgement of the gendered character of Australian health services organization and the role this may play in allied health workforce shortages.