Research utilisation or knowledge mobilisation by health managers: Synthesising evidence and theory using perspectives of organisational form, resource based view of the firm and critical theory

Abstract

The literature review builds on an earlier Scoping Review of the literature on knowledge mobilization (Crilly et al, 2010; Ferlie at al, 2012) which identified a gap in the healthcare literature and proposed work in three defined areas or domains. The first is Resource Based View of the Firm, a strategic management concept that examines how differences in capabilities, including knowledge, allow one firm to outperform another. There is no equivalent in healthcare. It states that strategic resources that are valuable, rare, difficult to imitate, and able to be exploited by organizational processes (VRIO principles), will give the firm a sustainable competitive advantage. The second is termed the Critical Perspective, concerned with power and authority in the workplace, which is alive to tensions between occupational groups such as doctors and managers. Two strands of particular interest are Foucauldian and neo-Marxist labour process critical theories. The third area is organizational form, which considers whether certain types of organization, such as networks, are better than others at mobilizing knowledge.