Exploring the mechanisms underlying performance comparisons, Performance Comparison and Organizational Service Provision investigates how such assessments shape hospitals' service provision and medical professionals' work.

Christopher Dorn is a Research Associate in Sociology, Trier University, Germany. He obtained his doctorate, supported by the German Excellence Initiative, from the Bielefeld Graduate School in History and Sociology. He specializes in the sociology of (e)valuation, organizations, performance measures, and professions.

Part I: Introducing Performance Comparisons

1. U.S. Hospitals: Peak Performance and Disappointment

Part II: Theorizing Hospital Performance Comparisons

2. Hospitals in the Context of Health Care, Profession, and Organization

3. Comparison, Performance, and Organizations

Part III: Examining the Case of Hospital Performance Comparisons in the United States

4. Reinventing the Hospital and Medicine: Setting the Stage for Comparisons, 1870-1945

5. The Jactitations of Hospital Control: Proliferation of Performance Comparisons, 1945-2016

6. Conclusion: Hospital Performance Control between Hope and Disappointment