Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to draw on the direct experience of a practitioner undertaking real-time research in his organization to offer insights into the dual role of practical insider and theoretical outsider. The duality helps the researcher to live “in” and think “out”...

As the nurse role becomes more specialised, leaving the healthcare assistant (HCA) to deliver much of the direct care, questions arise about the nature of the HCA-patient relationship. Do HCAs have a distinctive relationship with patients and what form does this take? Addressing these questions,...

The ‘modernisation’ of public services in Britain over recent years has encouraged policy makers, practitioners and researchers to devote increasing attention to the organization of work in the sector and, in particular, to the traditional division of labour. The pursuit of new modes of...

The translation of research into practice is currently a high-profile issue in the NHS. A number of regions have undertaken work in this area. Reports on a project that is part of the Anglia and Oxford Regions's “Getting Research into Practice” (GRiP) initiative. The work focuses on the use...

There are a large number of studies addressing the impact of continuing medical education (Davis et al. 1995) and clinical guidelines (Grimshaw & Russell 1993) on changing clinical practice, but comparatively little on the impact of purchasers of health care. There is some evidence that...

This article explores contrasting forms of ‘knowledge leadership’ in mobilising management research into organizational practice. Drawing on a Foucauldian perspective on power-knowledge, we introduce three axes of power-knowledge relations, through which we analyse knowledge leadership...

Have generic management texts and associated knowledges now extensively diffused into public services organizations? If so, why? Our empirical study of English healthcare organizations detects an extensive presence of such texts. We argue that their ready diffusion relates to two macro-level...