Theorising Support for Interdisciplinary Early-Career Researchers Using Communicative Genre and 'Rules of the Game'.

Qualitative social scientists working in medical faculties have to meet multiple expectations. On the one hand, they are expected to comply with the philosophical and theoretical expectations of the social sciences. On the other hand, they may also be expected to produce publications which align with biomedical definitions and framings of quality. As interdisciplinary scholars, they must handle (at least) two sets of journal editors, peer reviewers, grant-awarding panels, and conference audiences. In this paper, we extend the current knowledge base on the 'dual expectations' challenge by drawing on Orlikowski and Yates' theoretical concept of communicative genres. A 'genre' in this context is a format of communication (e.g. letter, email, academic paper, and conference presentation) aimed at a particular audience, having a particular material form and socio-linguistic style, and governed by both formal requirements and unwritten social rules. Becoming a member of any community of practice involves becoming familiar with its accepted communicative genres and adept in using them. Academic writing, for example, is a craft that is learned through participation in the social process of communicating one's ideas to one's peers in journal articles and other formats. In this reflective paper, we show how the concept of a communicative genre can sensitise us to the conflicting and often dissonant expectations and rule systems governing different academic fields. We use this key concept to suggest ways in which the faculty can support early-career researchers to progress in careers which straddle qualitative social science and medical science.

Unpacking Contexting and Institutionalizing as Complex Sustaining Practices Comment on "Sustaining Knowledge Translation Practices: A Critical Interpretive Synthesis".

This article discusses the work of Borst et al in which they suggest 'sustaining work' as a term that covers the efforts of actors to sustain the use of health research in policy and practice through three practices. I suggest that two of these, contexting and institutionalizing, need to be further unpacked to understand how and why they are important for sustaining work in knowledge translation (KT). To contribute here, I discuss KT as processes of organizational change that occurs within and across organizations, often involving actors with different views on and approaches to the use of health research in policy and practice. These actors will likely have very different understandings of what the context for using research is and they are likely be members of competing or conflicting institutions. Future research needs to take such elements into account to improve our understanding and practice of sustaining work.

Configurations of leadership practices in hospital units.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this paper is to explore how leadership is practiced across four different hospital units. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: The study is a comparative case study of four hospital units, based on detailed observations of the everyday work practices, interactions and interviews with ten interdisciplinary clinical managers. FINDINGS: Comparing leadership as configurations of practices across four different clinical settings, the author shows how flexible and often shared leadership practices were embedded in and central to the core clinical work in all units studied here, especially in more unpredictable work settings. Practices of symbolic work and emotional support to staff were particularly important when patients were severely ill. RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS: Based on a study conducted with qualitative methods, these results cannot be expected to apply in all clinical settings. Future research is invited to extend the findings presented here by exploring leadership practices from a micro-level perspective in additional health care contexts: particularly the embedded and emergent nature of such practices. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: This paper shows leadership practices to be primarily embedded in the clinical work and often shared across organizational or professional boundaries. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: This paper demonstrated how leadership practices are embedded in the everyday work in hospital units. Moreover, the analysis shows how configurations of leadership practices varied in four different clinical settings, thus contributing with contextual accounts of leadership as practice, and suggested "configurations of practice" as a way to carve out similarities and differences in leadership practices across settings.