Developing collaborative professionalism: an investigation of status differentiation in academic organizations in knowledge transfer partnerships

In recent years, there has been a significant growth in knowledge transfer partnerships to improve the quality and timeliness of health care. These activities require an increasing level of interdependence between academic and health care professionals, with important implications for human resource management. To understand these knowledge transfer partnerships, we conducted an in-depth longitudinal study based on 99 interviews and 5 focus group workshops across academic and health care professionals in nine university-based knowledge transfer partnerships in England. We explore how academic professionals of lower and higher status organizations develop a new form of professional work, based on the principles of collaborative professionalism, during their involvement in partnerships with health care professionals. We illuminate how the interdependent work between academic professionals and health care professionals in the development of a new academic specialization is shaped by the status of their organizations.