(2015) HR practices and knowledge brokering by hybrid middle managers in hospital settings : the influence of professional hierarchy. Human Resource Management, 54 (4). pp. 793-812.
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Copyright and reuse:The Warwick Research Archive Portal (WRAP) makes this work by researchers of the University of Warwick available open access under the following conditions. Copyright © and all moral rights to the version of the paper presented here belong to the individual author(s) and/or other copyright owners. To the extent reasonable and practicable the material made available in WRAP has been checked for eligibility before being made available.Copies of full items can be used for personal research or study, educational, or not-for profit purposes without prior permission or charge. Provided that the authors, title and full bibliographic details are credited, a hyperlink and/or URL is given for the original metadata page and the content is not changed in any way.
A note on versions:The version presented here may differ from the published version or, version of record, if you wish to cite this item you are advised to consult the publisher's version. Please see the 'permanent WRAP url' above for details on accessing the published version and note that access may require a subscription. Drawing upon the ability-motivation-opportunity (AMO) framework, our study extends understanding of the interaction between HR practices and the brokering of knowledge by hybrid middle managers. Examining healthcare delivered to older people in a hospital setting, our study highlights that hybrid nurse middle managers broker knowledge downwards through professional hierarchy to their peer group, but find it difficult to broker knowledge upwards. Meanwhile, because they lack legitimacy with doctors, they lack opportunity to broker knowledge inter-professionally. Hybrid medical middle managers are potentially more able to broker knowledge within their peer group. Some, of lower status intra-professionally, may however, like nurses, lack legitimacy and opportunity to do so. Meanwhile, higher status medical middle managers may lack motivation to engage in knowledge brokering with peers outside their specialism. We suggest inter-and intra-professional power and status has important implications for HR practices to support knowledge brokering by hybrid middle managers. Should HR practices fail to support ability, motivation and opportunity for knowledge brokering across and within professions, then a 'broken', rather than 'broker', chain may result.