Agathe Morinière , Irène Georgescu , Sea Matilda Bez
{"title":"Do Google Reviews matter for doctors? Unpacking online emotional accountability on a digital platform","authors":"Agathe Morinière , Irène Georgescu , Sea Matilda Bez","doi":"10.1016/j.cpa.2024.102768","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The emergence of publicly available online feedback has prompted inquiries into the evolving context of professional evaluation, especially in the healthcare sector. Drawing on Illouz’s critical theory of emotional capitalism, this article unravels whether and how patients’ Google feedback changes the way doctors are held accountable. We draw on a qualitative analysis of Google’s patient feedback that is combined, when available, with doctors’ responses, coupled with 13 interviews with medical professionals and members of their administrative staff. Our contributions lie in conceptualising this Google online feedback as a form of ‘online emotional accountability’, a crucial characterisation that extends the current understanding of the phenomenon of online feedback for professionals. It sheds new light on a pivotal shift in which informal discussions about doctors’ behaviour and patients’ emotional satisfaction are made publicly available, placing professionals—especially doctors—under public scrutiny not only for their expertise but also for their role in managing the diverse emotional needs and expectations of their patients. Our findings uncover four critical implications of this online emotional accountability from a doctors’ perspective: (1) the feigned indifference; (2) the critiques of the commodification of medical work; (3) the potential competing goals between achieving patient emotional satisfaction and respecting professional ethics; and (4) the challenges of addressing patients’ feedback under public scrutiny.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48078,"journal":{"name":"Critical Perspectives on Accounting","volume":"101 ","pages":"Article 102768"},"PeriodicalIF":8.3000,"publicationDate":"2024-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Critical Perspectives on Accounting","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1045235424000674","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"BUSINESS, FINANCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The emergence of publicly available online feedback has prompted inquiries into the evolving context of professional evaluation, especially in the healthcare sector. Drawing on Illouz’s critical theory of emotional capitalism, this article unravels whether and how patients’ Google feedback changes the way doctors are held accountable. We draw on a qualitative analysis of Google’s patient feedback that is combined, when available, with doctors’ responses, coupled with 13 interviews with medical professionals and members of their administrative staff. Our contributions lie in conceptualising this Google online feedback as a form of ‘online emotional accountability’, a crucial characterisation that extends the current understanding of the phenomenon of online feedback for professionals. It sheds new light on a pivotal shift in which informal discussions about doctors’ behaviour and patients’ emotional satisfaction are made publicly available, placing professionals—especially doctors—under public scrutiny not only for their expertise but also for their role in managing the diverse emotional needs and expectations of their patients. Our findings uncover four critical implications of this online emotional accountability from a doctors’ perspective: (1) the feigned indifference; (2) the critiques of the commodification of medical work; (3) the potential competing goals between achieving patient emotional satisfaction and respecting professional ethics; and (4) the challenges of addressing patients’ feedback under public scrutiny.
期刊介绍:
Critical Perspectives on Accounting aims to provide a forum for the growing number of accounting researchers and practitioners who realize that conventional theory and practice is ill-suited to the challenges of the modern environment, and that accounting practices and corporate behavior are inextricably connected with many allocative, distributive, social, and ecological problems of our era. From such concerns, a new literature is emerging that seeks to reformulate corporate, social, and political activity, and the theoretical and practical means by which we apprehend and affect that activity. Research Areas Include: • Studies involving the political economy of accounting, critical accounting, radical accounting, and accounting''s implication in the exercise of power • Financial accounting''s role in the processes of international capital formation, including its impact on stock market stability and international banking activities • Management accounting''s role in organizing the labor process • The relationship between accounting and the state in various social formations • Studies of accounting''s historical role, as a means of "remembering" the subject''s social and conflictual character • The role of accounting in establishing "real" democracy at work and other domains of life • Accounting''s adjudicative function in international exchanges, such as that of the Third World debt • Antagonisms between the social and private character of accounting, such as conflicts of interest in the audit process • The identification of new constituencies for radical and critical accounting information • Accounting''s involvement in gender and class conflicts in the workplace • The interplay between accounting, social conflict, industrialization, bureaucracy, and technocracy • Reappraisals of the role of accounting as a science and technology • Critical reviews of "useful" scientific knowledge about organizations