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What Medical Tourism Tells Us about the Plural Sector of Global Health Diplomacy and Governance: An Organizational Analysis of Civil Society in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Manzella, Francis Joseph
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1554476963107281

Abstract Details

2019, Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, Anthropology.
Medical tourism, whereby individuals travel outside of their respective country for health care, is a highly unregulated industry. Despite a lack of international health policy and governmental regulation, how is medical tourism formally organized, monitored, and preserved at the local level, and by whom? Based on twelve months of fieldwork with a group of highly influential civic and social entrepreneurs in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, this dissertation explores how a private, for-profit civil society organization sought to transform its community economically by formalizing a local medical tourism industry. The author describes how this group of civic and social entrepreneurs directly shaped prospective foreign patients’ medical travel experiences, and successfully formulated and managed a network of medical tourism service providers. This dissertation analyzes how organizational team members consistently practiced two key strategies of risk and partnership management to meet their end goal of establishing Rio de Janeiro as a “leading destination for world-class medical travel.” To meet this goal, team members had to secure a competitive market advantage by continuously redefining their organizational position-taking. In so doing, team members were forced to make impactful decisions regarding standards of patient safety and health care provider assurance and compliance in the absence of strict supervision and precedents from the public sector. With the capacity to retain and convert significant amounts of social and cultural capital into purpose-driven profit (economic capital) to directly influence health care delivery on-the-ground, civic and social entrepreneurs in for-profit civil society organizations warrant greater recognition within global health diplomacy and governance.
Vanessa Hildebrand (Committee Chair)
Atwood Gaines (Committee Member)
Lihong Shi (Committee Member)
Eileen Anderson-Fye (Committee Member)
210 p.
Behavioral Sciences; Cultural Anthropology; Entrepreneurship; Public Health
Medical Tourism; Global Health Diplomacy; Global Health Governance; Civil Society; Plural Sector; Brazil; Bourdieu; Organizational Analysis

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Manzella, F. J. (2019). What Medical Tourism Tells Us about the Plural Sector of Global Health Diplomacy and Governance: An Organizational Analysis of Civil Society in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil [Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1554476963107281

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Manzella, Francis. What Medical Tourism Tells Us about the Plural Sector of Global Health Diplomacy and Governance: An Organizational Analysis of Civil Society in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 2019. Case Western Reserve University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1554476963107281.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Manzella, Francis. "What Medical Tourism Tells Us about the Plural Sector of Global Health Diplomacy and Governance: An Organizational Analysis of Civil Society in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil." Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1554476963107281

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

case1554476963107281
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© 2019, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Case Western Reserve University School of Graduate Studies and OhioLINK.