Contestation about Collaboration: Discursive Boundary Work among Professions

Abstract

We examine how professions responded to a potential change in jurisdictional boundaries by analyzing the written submissions of five professional associations in reaction to a government proposal to strengthen interprofessional collaboration, relating these responses to the professions´ field positions. We identify four foci for framing used by the professions, represented by their professional associations, to discursively develop their boundary claims: (1) framing of the issue of interprofessional collaboration (that we call issue framing), (2) framing of justifications for favored solutions (that we call justifying), (3) framing of the profession's own identity (that we call self-casting), and (4) framing of other professions' identities (that we call altercasting). We find that professions employed these foci differently depending on two dimensions of their field positions -status and centrality. Our study contributes to the literature by identifying distinctive ways through which the foci for framing may be mobilized in situations of boundary contestation, and by theorizing how field position in terms of status and centrality influence actors' framing strategies.

Selective permeability of boundaries in a knowledge brokering team

“…The findings of this study also address the call for exploring the temporal dynamics of boundary work (Faraj and Yan ; Drach‐Zahavy and Somech ; Marrone ; Bucher et al ). First, they indicate that it is not the overall team boundary permeability per se but the deployment of different strategies of boundary work towards specific out‐groups that changes over time.…”

“…The public sector is being transformed by postmodern patterns of organizing, including hybrid, network‐based and temporary arrangements where collaboration, governance and partnership unfold across multiple boundaries (Williams ; Calvard ; Quick and Feldman ; Bucher et al ). This has led to the growing interest in the phenomenon of boundary spanning, which occurs when individual or collective agents connect entities separated by a boundary by negotiating the meaning and terms of the relationship between them (Levina and Vaast ; Kislov et al ).…”

New Game, Old Rules? Mechanisms and Consequences of Legitimation in Boundary Spanning Activities

“…Establishing designated boundary spanning roles should therefore be analysed within the broader context of government-led initiatives aiming to reconfigure the relationships between the fields (and subfields) characterized by different degrees of autonomy from the 'field of power'. These initiatives, exemplified by interprofessional and inter-organizational collaborations, aim to increase effectiveness and efficiency by promoting integration and cooperation between different sectors, organizations and professions (Bucher et al, 2016;Evans & Scarbrough, 2014;Kislov et al, 2016a). In the UK context, this is accompanied by the state's attempts to challenge the autonomy of the healthcare field by introducing alternative managerialist logics of quasi-market and target-driven performance management (Battilana, 2011;Waring & Currie, 2009).…”

“…Furthermore, boundary spanners, perhaps due to the increased propensity of peripherally located lower-status agents to decipher 'the rules of the game' and 'unmask' power relationships (Bourdieu, 2000;Bucher et al, 2016), can relatively quickly overcome the mismatch between their individual dispositions, which are shaped by their previous engagement in past fields, and the current field (see McDonough & Polzer, 2012). The fact that we observed this shift across all of our boundary spanners allows us to interpret it as a non-random and relatively durable change of their emerging collective habitus under the influence of the forces operating in the most influential field they are interacting with (Bourdieu, 1983(Bourdieu, , [1984 2010; Emirbayer & Johnson, 2008).…”

Just for fun! How experimental spaces stimulate innovation in institutionalized fields

“…Boundary work delineates a space from the field by assigning membership, deciding on when and where members meet, as well as what they do within the space Bucher, Chreim, Langley & Reay, 2016;Gieryn, 1983). A core argument is that boundaries protect space members from external pressures to conform to institutionalized scripts and help them let go of their social roles (Canales, 2016;Mair & Hehenberger, 2014).…”