Organisational professional conflict and hybrid clinician managers: the effects of dual roles in Australian health care organizations

Abstract

Purpose: This article aims to examine tensions between hybrid clinician managers' professional values and health care organisations' management objectives.

Design/methodology/approach: Data are from interviews conducted with, and observation of, 14 managerial participants in a Cancer Therapy Unit set in a large teaching hospital in New South Wales, Australia, who participated in a Clinical Leadership Development Program.

Findings: The data indicate that there are tensions experienced by members of the health care organisation when a hybrid clinician manager appears to abandon the managerial role for the clinical role. The data also indicate that when a hybrid clinician manager takes on a managerial role other members of the health care organisation are required concomitantly to increase their clinical roles.

Research limitations/implications: Although the research was represented by a small sample and was limited to one department of a health care organisation, it is possible that other members of health care organisations experience similar situations when they work with hybrid clinician managers. Other research supports the findings. Also, this paper reports on data that emerged from a research project that was evaluating a Clinical Leadership Development Program. The research was not specifically focused on organisational professional conflict in health care organisations.

Practical implications: This paper shows that the role of the hybrid clinician manager may not bring with it the organisational effectiveness that the role was perceived to have. Hybrid clinician managers abandoning their managerial role for their clinical role may mean that some managerial work is not done. Increasing the workload of other clinical members of the health care organisation may not be optimal for the health care organisation.

Originality/value: Organisational professional conflict, as a result of hybridity and divergent managerial and clinical objectives, can cause conflict which affects other organisational members and this conflict may have implications for the efficiency of the health care organisation. The extension or duality of organisational professional conflict that causes interpersonal or group conflict in other members of the organisation, to the authors' knowledge, has not yet been researched.