LWO/RMWE Research Community Seminar – Professor Julie Davies
Title: Unravelling the emergent hybrid roles in permanent liminality: The case of advanced clinical practitioners
Date: 21st June 2023
Time: 14:00-16:00
Location: NUBS 2.08
Speaker: Professor Julie Davies (University College London)
If you would like to attend, please register using the following link:
Professor Julie Davies is Director of the MBA Health programme and Deputy Director for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in the Global Business School for Health (GBSH), University College London, julie.a.davies@ucl.ac.uk, @juliedaviesUK. Julie earned a PhD in strategic management at Warwick University. She is a qualitative researcher with research interests in management education, strategic and hybrid leadership development, research impact, gender, and ethnic minority entrepreneurship. Julie is a practitioner Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and Association of University Administrators. She is an Associate Editor of Human Resource Development Review and has published in the Academy of Management Learning &Education; Employee Relations; Gender, Work & Organization; Journal of Business Research; Journal of Small Business Management; Stress and Health as well as Nature Index and the LSE Impact of Social Sciences blog. Her co-authored book Leading a Business School was published in January 2023. julie.a.davies@ucl.ac.uk; @juliedaviesuk
Abstract:
Transitions between jobs are common experiences with important consequences for people’s lives. The impact of creating new types of hybrid roles in the public sector which span multiple professions, however, are not well understood. In this three-year study using focus groups, we analysed the experiences of 36 trainee advanced clinical practitioners (ACPs) to examine the effects of public policies which are intended to address nursing and medical workforce shortages by creating new kinds of roles for non-medical prescribing clinicians. We investigated change trajectories during the transitions of trainee ACPs. We found that several ACPs felt highly valued as intermediaries between different occupational groups and those towards the end of their careers who had wished to retire in palliative care settings felt liberated in their new roles. Some individuals, however, in acute settings tended to feel trapped as substitutes for junior doctors and misunderstood while ACPs in primary care felt most vulnerable in practising beyond their licence. We found that older and more experienced secondary care nurses had higher levels of confidence and satisfaction in hybrid roles than individuals who were less used to working in multi-disciplinary teams and hospital settings. Our findings illustrate the phenomenon of permanent liminality as ACPs act as go-betweens and never fully transition from one traditional professional identity to another emergent hybrid identity. These findings point to dynamic relationships between public sector workforce policies, inter-occupational transitions, and career satisfaction. They raise important questions about creating enhanced roles to integrate professional services in a context of public sector pay restrictions and chronic essential workforce retention and recruitment challenges.