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The purpose of this paper is to explore whether unitary managers with different professional backgrounds carry out and reflect differently upon their roles as unitary managers.

This paper presents findings from two different studies, comprising both data from qualitative interviews and a nationwide survey.

Doctors and nurses in many respects perform their roles as unitary managers differently. They hold the same position but carry out their roles differently. Doctors are very committed to clinical tasks and stress to a great extent that clinical tasks should be integrated in management at the department level. The opposite is true for the nurses, where leadership first and foremost should be understood as management.

Even though doctors and nurses are in the same position they manage differently, being committed to different tasks within the unit. This is not the intention of the reform. However, the question is thus, will this have (severe) consequences for the organization? Or does it represent a healthy diversity in the health organisation?

This paper explores whether different professions carry out their managerial tasks differently and what practical implications this could have. It brings to the fore substantial empirical data on how one of the major reforms in Norwegian (and international) health care has been adopted and carried out by major professional groups.

Changing market conditions, new modes of labour and decreasing legitimisation of experts, as well as an increasing ratio of women, pose new challenges to the professions. These ongoing dynamics are especially visible in the health care system – a traditional professional field with strongly formalised rules governing entrance, initiation and career paths. In addition, this field is highly segregated according to sexes. How do the bove‐mentioned processes of change present themselves and what economic, social or structural factors cause them? What role does gender play within these processes? What potential lies in the re‐structuring processes of health care systems as far as a gender equal architecture and design of professions is concerned? These and other questions are addressed in this collection of papers. For the main part they grew out of a thematic focus event organised and coordinated by the editors for the 5th Conference of the European Sociological Association (ESA) Research Network Sociology of Professions that was held in 2001 in Helsinki. Inspired by the richness of the research results on professions and gender in health care systems in various European countries and new horizons which opened up from the comparative perspective in different countries, professions, and theoretical approaches, and finally motivated by very constructive ensuing discussions, we decided to continue the discussion with a publication.