Proceedings of the 12th European Conference on Knowledge ...

Roman Kislov
Apart from <strong>the</strong>se studies, <strong>the</strong>re seems to be little discussion in healthcare literature about boundary
interactions between interconnected/co-located communities and within newly formed
multipr<strong>of</strong>essional CoPs in particular. Although CoPs are seen as a knowledge management tool
transferring tacit knowledge, it is not clear how knowledge transfer is shaped by multiple semantic,
syntactic and pragmatic boundaries within <strong>the</strong>se newly formed heterogeneous groupings, individual
role-identities <strong>of</strong> CoP members and <strong>the</strong>ir perceptions.
3. Research objectives
In light <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> literature review presented above, this study aims to answer <strong>the</strong> following research
questions:
How does a large-scale healthcare collaboration influence <strong>the</strong> development <strong>of</strong> multipr<strong>of</strong>essional
and multi-organisational communities <strong>of</strong> practice (CoPs)?
How do <strong>the</strong> members <strong>of</strong> multipr<strong>of</strong>essional and multi-organisational CoPs reconcile <strong>the</strong>ir
pr<strong>of</strong>essional and organisational identities and a new, ‘collaborative’ CoP identity?
How does a large-scale healthcare collaboration programme influence <strong>the</strong> process <strong>of</strong> knowledge
sharing within and across multipr<strong>of</strong>essional and multiorganisational CoPs?
4. Design and methodology
4.1 Setting
This research is conducted within <strong>the</strong> implementation strand <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> CLAHRC (Collaboration for
Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care) for Greater Manchester—a collaborative
partnership between <strong>the</strong> University <strong>of</strong> Manchester and twenty NHS Trusts across Greater Manchester
aiming to undertake high-quality patient-centred applied health research and to support <strong>the</strong> translation
<strong>of</strong> research evidence into clinical practice (NIHR 2011). In total, nine CLAHRCs were established
across <strong>the</strong> UK in 2008 to enhance knowledge transfer between academic researchers and NHS staff
and thus address <strong>the</strong> “second gap in translation”—a gap in <strong>the</strong> translation <strong>of</strong> new medical
interventions into everyday practice identified by Cooksey's (2006; p.99) Review <strong>of</strong> UK Health
Research Funding. Crossing inter-organisational boundaries, bringing toge<strong>the</strong>r people from different
pr<strong>of</strong>essional backgrounds and a relatively long life span <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> initiative make CLAHRCs an optimal
setting for studying <strong>the</strong> formation <strong>of</strong> multi-organisational and multipr<strong>of</strong>essional CoPs.
4.2 Research participants
More specifically, <strong>the</strong> study looks at <strong>the</strong> following two CLAHRC implementation <strong>the</strong>mes: Chronic Heart
Disease and Chronic Kidney Disease, both <strong>of</strong> which aim to improve healthcare and reduce
inequalities in health for people with cardiovascular conditions through redesigning primary care in
line with existing scientific evidence. The purposeful sampling strategy has been deployed to recruit
research participants, including people actively involved in <strong>the</strong> above two <strong>the</strong>mes and representing a
number <strong>of</strong> pr<strong>of</strong>essional groups – GPs, GPs with special interest, specialist nurses, practice nurses,
hospital consultants, project managers, Primary Care Trust Medical Directors, Knowledge Transfer
Associates and management academics. Around 45-50 research participants will be involved in <strong>the</strong>
project.
4.3 Data collection and analysis
The study is underpinned by <strong>the</strong> ontological and epistemological assumptions <strong>of</strong> critical realism. The
critical realist approach sees <strong>the</strong> main aim <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> social sciences in explaining <strong>the</strong> social world by
uncovering generative mechanisms that get activated in certain contexts and produce different social
phenomena. To uncover <strong>the</strong>se (<strong>of</strong>ten hidden) mechanisms and thus provide a scientific explanation,
<strong>the</strong> processes <strong>of</strong> building, testing and refining <strong>the</strong> <strong>the</strong>ory are usually combined (Outhwaite 1987;
Danermark et al. 2002). This is reflected in <strong>the</strong> design <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> current study, which uses a qualitative
comparative case study as an overarching research methodology and will be comprised <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>
following three stages.
Stage 1 is mainly concerned with <strong>the</strong> identification and description <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> processes taking place in
multipr<strong>of</strong>essional CoPs, mapping <strong>the</strong> main <strong>the</strong>mes and, in <strong>the</strong> end, inducing a list <strong>of</strong> refined
<strong>the</strong>oretical propositions that could potentially be used for explaining <strong>the</strong> phenomenon under study.
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