CoPs and Robbers: Making and taking management in UK healthcare (original) (raw)

CoPs and Robbers: Taking and Making Management in UK Healthcare

Academy of Management Proceedings, 2013

In the context of a rapidly fragmenting system of health care in the UK, management is becoming bound into a situation in which the administrative and performative demands of their work appear to increase in direct relation to the denigration that surrounds them, both inside and outside individual healthcare organisations. In this complex system, or industry, of healthcare, not only does management represent an important function in itself, but the links that are forged between different groups of managers from across a range groups, from clinical to functional specialties, become of fundamental importance. This paper uses the notion of communities of practice to analyse this coordination and communication between management groups and between knowledge domains. The analysis draws out differences in the percieved credibility of different knowledge domains: the enclosures of expertise built around them, and the bridges that operate between them. In their ability to control the flows of knowledge in and out of their own enclosures, both clinical and functional management groups can function as mutually independent professional groups. In contrast, general management is impeded in this function by its diffuse knowledge domains, its cultural denigration and its lack of professional credibility. Unable to either close ranks within organisations or branch out via external bodies, the resulting isolation of general management weds them ever more firmly to the political context of the NHS in which they function as a residual scapegoat category. Given the longterm inviability of such a category, this analysis prompts a questioning of the future appearance and function of general management in healthcare.

Management knowledge and situated learning in UK healthcare managment

This paper investigates how managers in healthcare acquire and apply management knowledge, how this is influenced by their background and experiences and how it is shaped by their communities of practice and the training and development they receive. A practice-based approach is taken that examines knowledge and learning processes at the level of management practice, but juxtaposed with changes occurring at the institutional and organizational level. Comparative case study evidence is presented from across three types of hospital trust (acute, care and specialist) and across three selected managerial groups within each trust (clinical, general and functional). Attention is directed towards the forms of knowledge acquired by managers, their relationship with managerial work and identity and their association with different forms of learning, including formal management training and development.

The Concept of Manager: Critical Analysis and Competencies Required

10th International Scientific Conference “Business and Management 2018”, 2018

The aim of the research is to analyse manager’s competence groups, a manager role in modern enter-prise and clarify what competences are required for managers in knowledge intensive business service (KIBS) organizations. Authors assumed that natural changes in the external environment lead to ap-pearance and development of new managerial activities and competences or manifestation of a cer-tain set of competencies. Previous researchers reveal that new context of teams that are diversified in terms of locations, disciplines and social groups require managers to act differently. Other researchers emphasize acceleration of technological novelties and presence of new organizational forms such as small and medium enterprises (SMEs) also creates new operational processes and managerial activi-ties. Business society and labor market expect a professional who acts in different roles of entrepre-neur, leader, and manager simultaneously. The authors conducted literature overview and identifie...