Reading: Knowledge Mobilisation: management vs researchers?

Crilly et al published their findings of a research utilisation and knowledge mobilisation literature review in 2010. I’ll be publishing my summary and views of it in sections as it’s 306 pages long!

Possibly contentiously it opens with comparative vignettes:

Frist, Kieran Walshe extols the virtues of the usefulness of research conducted for NHS managers and leaders.

Then, an NHS manager describes their reality… what is delivered in practice is that which the government mandates, irrespective of the evidence.

Overall, this report describes a structured rather than systematic review with a replicable literature search outline (2000-2008) covering both management and health literature. The search included terms such as knowledge management, transfer, sharing, capture, utilisation, implementation, mobilisation, exchange, transmission, translation and diffusion.

The identified papers were thematically coded which resulted in categories of:

1. Nature of knowledge and knowing (19% management articles)
2. Information systems and information technology (1-5%)
3. Communities of practice (6-10%)
4. Organisational form (11-15%)
5. Organisational learning (11-15%)
6. Resourced based view of the firm (6-10%)
7. Critical theory (6-10%)
8. Knowledge transfer and performance (11-15%)
9. Barriers to knowledge transfer and facilitators of organisational development (6-10%)
10. Culture, anthropology and conversation management (1-5%)
11. Evidence based healthcare (additional theme from health literature)
12. Super structures (additional theme from health literature)

Intuitively these don’t feel like fun categories to me – let’s see where they go…

Next time… They summarise the knowledge mobilisation policy background from 1948-2009…

Reading KM0001: SDO knowledge mobilisation literature review (1)
Crilly T, Jashapara A, Ferlie E (2010) “Research Utilisation & knowledge mobilisation: A scoping review of the literature” Report for the National Institute for Health Research Service Delivery and Organisation programme HMSO