Smith, S and Ward, V (2015) The role of boundary maintenance and blurring in a UK collaborative research project: How researchers and health service managers made sense of new ways of working. Social Science and Medicine, 130. 225 - 233. ISSN 0277-9536
Abstract
The paper investigates whether, how and in what circumstances boundary blurring or boundary maintenance is productive or destructive of sense in collaborative research based on a case study involving researchers from two universities and two principal organisational stakeholders in a local healthcare system in England between 2009 and 2012. Adopting a narrative method, using meeting observation, document analysis and interviews, we describe two key sets of activities in the evolution of collaboration, which allows us to tackle the question at two levels. Studying the production of documents and their use as boundary objects in project management meetings, we show how these were used to enable cooperation by establishing a truce between worldviews, giving participants a better feel for the game and a clearer perception of its stakes. Studying how the partnership expanded to take in other organisations besides the two formal partners, we show how the project accommodated pre-existing organisational interests but thereby sacrificed its experimental ethos. In showing how actors needed to subvert their experimental script to enact collaborative partnership, we argue for understanding and evaluating the latter as the co-produced outcome of disputes and co-orientations towards a practical ideal, not as an organisational format for knowledge co-production.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This is an author produced version of a paper published in Social Science & Medicine. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | Collaborative research; Collaborative partnership; Co-production; Co-orientation; Narrative; Boundary object; UK |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Medicine and Health (Leeds) > School of Medicine (Leeds) > Leeds Institute of Health Sciences (Leeds) > Academic Unit of Primary Care (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 08 Oct 2015 09:18 |
Last Modified: | 14 Apr 2017 04:07 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.02.023 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.02.023 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:86472 |