Can Management Control Systems Reduce Physician Dissatisfaction?

This study examines the impact of management control systems on professionals and whether this impact is moderated by personality characteristics. Specifically, we investigate how physicians' job satisfaction and intention to leave the profession are related to professional controls, type of compensation contract and locus of control. We argue that physicians with an external locus of control should have lower job satisfaction and a greater intention to leave, and that professional controls should reduce these effects. We also investigate the impact of pay for performance incentives on job satisfaction and intention to leave and find that physicians with these incentives have higher job satisfaction and lower intention to leave. Locus of control does not affect these relations.