Professional and Managerial Language in Hybrid Industry-Research Organizations and within the Hybrid Clinician Manager Role

Abstract

Interactions between professionals and managers are vital to medical and commercialization outcomes. This chapter considers how boundaries between professionals and managers are expressed through language in two contexts: between researchers and managers in temporary Australian hybrid industry-research organizations and within the same individual performing a hybrid clinician-manager role in Australian health care organizations. Semi-structured interviews of twenty scientists, engineers, and managers, focusing on their experiences, and perceptions of occupational culture, revealed that language norms contributed to knowledge creation, and played a role in maintaining a hierarchy among research institutions. Semi-structured interviews of twenty doctors and managers, focusing on their perception and experience of the hybrid clinician manager’s role within health care organizations, revealed that professional identity influenced language norms used by doctors and managers and contributed to the tensions experienced in their interactions. Distinctive patterns of argumentation and language were identified as typical of commercial and research occupations and were also distinctive in doctors working in hybrid clinician manager’s roles. The scientists, engineers, and managers working in hybrid industry-research organizations and the doctors and managers working in health care organizations reported frustration and reduced effectiveness of argumentation due to different norms for dissent.