Corinne Grenier

Innovation and knowledge sharing across professional boundaries: Political interplay between boundary objects and brokers

The article examines the process of innovation and knowledge sharing from a perspective that focuses on the influence that local circumstances can have. In particular, it looks at the problems of knowledge sharing between groups of professionals. It presents a comparative analysis of two studies, one involving two groups of IT professionals; the other a network of healthcare professionals. The data was collected in two sets. The first set consisted of the results from two earlier, independent studies; the second was collected specifically for this article. We investigate the role played by boundary objects and brokers. Through an analysis of the interplay between boundary object and broker, we uncover the dynamics of the innovation process and show that the role played by the broker can be political. We identify two strategies that are used by brokers in the selection of a boundary object. The first is directed towards achieving a balance between the actors involved and the second is directed towards controlling their activities. We conclude by suggesting that other researchers should also consider the interplay between broker and boundary object when examining cross-boundary knowledge sharing.

Implementing Spaces to Favor the Emergence of Ecologies of Complex Innovation in the Public Sector: An Empirical Analysis

Dougherty et al. posit that production of complex innovations requires that ecologies be organized, involving three activities: orchestrating knowledge capabilities, ongoing strategizing to frame and direct continuous innovation, and developing public policy to embrace ambiguity. Our study aims to understand how such ecologies emerge. Based on a longitudinal case study, performed in the context of the Quebec health system, our results suggest (a) that the emergence of innovations in highly institutionalized fields requires an additional activity, namely, working on boundaries to make actors perceive their interdependences (b) some levers that can foster the implementation of the model.

Le manager hybride, acteur-passeur et acteur-clôture aux frontières institutionnelles : Analyse d’un médecin-chef de pôle hospitalier

L’hybridation interroge les modes de conciliation entre une logique institutionnelle preexistante et une nouvelle. Les auteurs analysent l’habilete d’un manager hybride a soutenir ses equipes dans un contexte organisationnel pluri-institutionnel conteste. Etudiant un pole hospitalier, ils montrent, a l’encontre des travaux de litterature, que le medecin-gestionnaire a sa tete est parvenu a faire accepter la logique medico-economique comme une strategie de defense contre la seule logique economique. Pour ce faire, ils discutent trois habiletes deployees par ce manager : 1) etre a la fois novice, familier et identifie pour soutenir l’hybridation institutionnelle, 2) etre acteur-passeur et acteur-cloture, 3) etre acteur porteur d’une legitimite medico-economique permise par un leadership partage et hybride.

Strategic and Enforced Logics Hybridization: An Agency View within French Hospitals and Universities

Abstract Adopting an agentic positioning, we question and compare competing logics hybridization within French hospitals and universities facing major reforms inspired by new public management. In addition to the resulting forms of hybridization exposed in the literature (accepted or refused), we observe four additional modes: instrumentalized, uncomfortable, reformulated, and suffered. They all reveal the varied manner with which each professional faces reform. However, we develop a new argument: the ways professionals hybridize (or do not) their prevailing logic depends on an overarching mode of hybridization that characterizes the way their organization deals with reform. We identify two contrasting modes: overarching strategic logics hybridization and overarching enforced logics hybridization. They give insight into how actors decouple structure from practices. We contribute to the literature on logics hybridization by first analyzing the role of specific actors who act as either a translator-actor or a closure-actor to respectively facilitate appropriation of the reforms or to protect professionals against the growing dominance of the new logic introduced by the law; and secondly by discussing importance of articulating higher and lower organizational levels all involved in hybridization.