Jayanti, Rama K., and Wendy Regoeczi, (2023), “COVID 19 and Nurse Professionalization,” Presented at The Marketing & Public Policy Conference, June 8-10, Arlington, VA.

COVID 19 has placed intense pressure on front line employees (FLEs) in the health sector andforced many states to grant independent practice authority called Expanded Scope of Practice(ESOP) to Nurse Practitioners (NPs) who have advanced degrees and are trained to diagnose andprescribe ailing patients. We study whether ESOP, considered as a market experiment, influencesFLE identity, professionalism, workload dynamics, and need for physician oversight withimplications for patient care and engagement. We examine NPs willingness to continue ESOPpost COVID 19 given the contextual nature of the authority granted to them. We ground ourarguments within institutional theory driven professions domain to contribute to the healthmarketing literature in two ways. First, we examine if NPs support ESOP, which happens to be acontextual abnormality. As the focal actors towards whom the regulation is targeted, the literaturehas surprising lack of studies on how NPs interpret the regulation. Second, we examine theinfluence of ESOP on FLE variables that have attracted research attention in the healthmarketing literature, such as FLE identity, FLE professionalism, workload dynamics, and needfor supervision which directly impact customer care with implications for service deliverymechanisms. Our results have implications for health care marketers and health policy makers.We conclude by showcasing opportunities for further research into shifts in FLE service deliverytrajectories triggered by market shocks such as COVID 19.