Physicians' intrinsic motivators and their implications on economic control

Sammanfattning: Giving physicians external rewards for higher quality and output has displayed little evidence of success and the low motivation among physicians is considered a major problem in the health care sector. With these problems arising despite intricate economic control systems some of the attention has shifted toward control systems considering intrinsic motivation. This thesis aims to shed some light on what physicians regard as their primary intrinsic motivators and what underlying needs these satisfy. A distinction is made between being intrinsically motivated by professionalism and being intrinsically motivated by patient care. With a qualitative approach to the collection of data, eight physicians and a CFO of a health care group were interviewed. Using a framework derived from the Self-Determination Theory and the New Light Theory the factors that affect the physicians' intrinsic motivation the most were analysed. The results indicated that professionalism is a more powerful intrinsic motivator than the provision of care. The reason for the result is argued to rest on the assumption that professionalism is connected to the powerful need to feel competent while patient care is linked to the weaker need of social relatedness.