The Impact of Institutional Forces Upon Knowledge Sharing in the UK NHS: The Triumph of Professional Power and the Inconsistency of Policy

TLDR

Academics, policy‑makers and practitioners increasingly recognize that effective management of knowledge across organizational and professional boundaries can improve public services. The study examines UK NHS knowledge sharing through a neo‑institutional lens, highlighting how regulatory, normative, and cultural‑cognitive institutional factors constrain cross‑boundary knowledge flow. The authors employ a neo‑institutional organizational sociology framework to analyze knowledge sharing in the UK NHS. The study shows that institutional isomorphism promotes convergence within similar organizations and occupations while hindering cross‑group convergence, making the creation of a learning organization with free cross‑boundary knowledge sharing unlikely.

Abstract

Academics, policy‐makers and practitioners are increasingly interested in the contribution that effective management of knowledge across organizational and professional boundaries can make to improved public services. Examining knowledge sharing within the context of the UK NHS, we ground our investigation in neo‐institutional organizational sociology. We highlight the influence of regulatory, normative and cultural‐cognitive aspects of institutions operating in the health care field on the boundaries that impede knowledge sharing. We illustrate how institutional isomorphic processes facilitate convergence within groups of organizations and occupations subject to the same institutional pressures, but, by the same token, inhibit convergence across different organizational and occupational groupings. In short, the development of a learning organization, where knowledge is shared freely across boundaries, will be difficult to realize.