Rolling with the Punches: Clinician Resistance in a Managerial NHS Hospital

The substantive area explored in this article is hospital consultants in an English Acute NHS hospital dealing routinely with increasing managerialism. Data were drawn from 49 interviews with hospital consultants, at one English Acute NHS hospital Trust. The classic grounded theory named “Rolling with the Punches” that emerged was enriched by literature relating to everyday resistance, labour process theory, institutional complexity and organisation studies by considering public and private (internal) scripts. Interpretation of the emergent theory also drew from everyday resistance narratives from rural peasantry applied to the highly qualified public sector hospital professionals. The theory reiterates the role of discursive resistance in the workplace.