The medical industry across the western world is currently involved in processes of strategic and managerial re‑orientation. These processes originate from a number of demographic and structural developments, such as the progressive ageing of the population, autonomous increases in healthcare demands by citizens, the impact of new pathologies and technologies and the need to rectify supposed inefficiencies in the design and running of national healthcare systems. In several countries, such as Spain, formal legislation requires regional healthcare authorities to encourage hospitals to become flexible organisations that are more receptive to demands from the public, and to offer higher quality services at lower cost. This research project is based empirically on data obtained from top management teams in Spanish hospitals, and takes this setting as its primary focus. However, it is also aimed at developing knowledge that applies to a larger set of organisations, within which management teams are a dominant organisational element, and within which the control of such teams is considered a challenge. (PDF 379KB)