Blended Boundaries An exploratory mixed methods study of the impact of professional identity, professional capability and policy alienation on the willingness to use transnational performance standards in inter-professional collaboration

Abstract

Whereas traditional professionals – medical doctors, police officers, and the like – work within their respective disciplines, within a certain geographical space (a hospital, a neighbourhood, et cetera), many modern professionals work with and across disciplines, and outside fixed territories. Doctors and police officers might be members of transnational inter-professional search and rescue teams. Increasingly, transnational performance standards regulate their work. Both inter-professional collaboration as well as transnational standards, however, will impede their ability to ensure professional quality, even more than traditional professionals. Three constructs associated with the so-called professional logic – professional identity, professional capability and policy alienation – have been suggested to play an important role in effectively using (or not using) transnational standards. This study investigates whether and how professional identity, professional capability and policy alienation influence the implementation of a transnational performance standard in inter-professional collaboration. We focus on the successful Dutch Urban Search and Rescue team and a transnational performance standard (the INSARAG guideline) and study whether the influence of these constructs differs between the different professions active in these inter-professional teams. Moreover, we study which mechanisms hinder or help capabilities to implement a guideline in situations that are difficult to standardize. We used an exploratory sequential mixed methods design to collect data. Results show that professional identity, professional capability and policy alienation indeed influence implementation of the guidelines and inter-professional collaboration. Moreover, we found three other factors which were influential: inter-professional education, selection of highly skilled professionals and professionals with high work experience. Last, it shows that, due to their complexity, both inter-professional collaboration and transnational standard setting might be complementary. The insights from this study help in understanding why professionals embrace or resist the implementation of transnational guidelines and inter-professional collaboration.