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Objectives: There exists a translation gap between academic research and clinical practice in health care systems. One policy-driven initiative to address the translation gap in England are the Collaborations for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRCs), funded by the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR). These aim to bring together NHS organizations and universities to accelerate the translation of evidence-based innovation into clinical practice. Our aim was to draw out lessons for policy-makers regarding the mobilization of such initiatives., Methods: Qualitative semi-structured interviews with 174 participants across nine CLAHRCs plus in-depth case studies across four CLAHRCs. Those interviewed were staff who were central to the CLAHRCs including senior managers and directors, junior and senior academics, and health care practitioners., Results: Social positions of the CLAHRC leaders, conceived as institutional entrepreneurs, together with the antecedent conditions for CLAHRC bids, had an impact on the vision for a CLAHRC. The process of envisioning encompassed diagnostic and prognostic framing. Within the envisioning process, the utilization of existing activities and established relationships in the CLAHRC bid influenced early mobilization. However, in some cases, it led to a translational 'lock in' towards established models regarding applied research., Conclusions: The CLAHRC experiment in England holds important lessons for policy-makers regarding how to address the translation gap. First, policy makers need to consider whether they set out a defined template for translational initiatives or whether variation is encouraged. We might expect a degree of learning from pilot activities within a CLAHRC that allows for greater clarity in the design of subsequent translational initiatives. Second, policy makers and practitioners need to understand the importance of both antecedent conditions and the social position of senior members of a CLAHRC (institutional entrepreneurs) leading the development of a bid. Whilst established and well-known clinical academics are likely to be trusted to lead CLAHRCs, and the presence of pre-existing organizational relationships are important for mobilization, privileging these aspects may constrain more radical change.

In this article we strive to reconcile equivocal findings about the effects of top leader succession and prior leadership experience on postsuccession organizational performance. In doing so, we draw on insights from theories of human capital, learning, and asymmetric information to better understand the conditions under which leaders increase or decrease postsuccession performance. Employing a sample of 119 newly appointed leaders in the English Premier League (1996-2010), we find the following results. First, relating to the succession event, outside leaders that directly move between leadership positions are associated with higher postsuccession performance while the departure of a prior leader to a leadership position in another organization has a negative effect on postsuccession performance. Second, relating to prior leadership experience, leaders with domestic top leader experience are associated with lower postsuccession performance, while leaders with foreign top leader experience are associated with higher postsuccession performance. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we review and synthesize extant research on entrepreneurial leadership, capabilities and their influence on the growth of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). First, we begin by examining the processes, routines and resources underlying substantive growth capabilities; these are capabilities that enable a firm to grow by competing in its market(s) on a day-to-day basis. Second, we explore leadership in terms of the cognitions motivations and decisions to invest in growth. Third, we examine the dynamic capabilities, which extend, modify or create new substantive (growth) capabilities, to support the sustained pursuit of new opportunities. In so doing, we explore the interrelationships between substantial capabilities, leadership and dynamic capabilities. We conclude the review by highlighting areas of consensus and contention in the literature, from which we propose fruitful areas for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The ability of individuals to accommodate the emotional transition into roles requiring the construction of a leader identity is an under-researched phenomenon. To address this research gap we consider the experience of 32 nurse managers undergoing a leadership development programme, exploring how an emotional attachment to their professional group identity may cause identity conflict during the construction of a managerial leader identity. We consider how competing desired identities can result in negative emotional experiences, calling into question existing work, which assumes that desired group identities are congruent with leader identities. Our work suggests that identity work can mitigate identity conflict at the individual level, enabling nurse managers to function in their role, but emotional distress will continue due to a perceived loss of professional identity and group influence. We contend it is only by eschewing an emotional attachment to a professional group identity that nurse managers will be able to overcome this negative emotional experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines leadership in practice, specifically the interaction of leaders and followers, taking account of context (. Distributed Leadership. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass). Employing Gronn's dimensions of concertive action and conjoint agency (. Distributed leadership as a unit of analysis. Leadership Quarterly, 13, pp. 423-451), different conceptualizations of distributed leadership (DL) are examined, and the influence of a health and social care context on attempts to enact DL is analysed. In so doing, boundary conditions or the limits to distributing leadership in health and social care are identified. The analysis suggests that the collective leadership DL model presented by Denis et al. (. The dynamics of collective leadership and strategic change in pluralistic organizations. Academy of Management Journal, 44, pp. 809-837) is most likely to be enacted in the face of policy and professional pressures towards more concentrated leadership. However, where DL does not encompass conjoint agency, it will tend towards more towards 'nobody in charge' (. Nobody in charge: distributed change agency in healthcare. Human Relations, 60, pp. 1065-1090) or collaborative leadership (. Leadership in the shaping and implementation of collaboration agendas: how things happen in a (not quite) joined-up world. Academy of Management Journal, 43, pp. 1159-1175). Following the analysis, the authors argue that researchers need to move beyond a reified concept of DL, and ask a more straightforward question of how power is distributed. As Gosling et al. suggest (. Distributed leadership in higher education: what does it accomplish? Leadership, 5, pp. 299-310), DL evokes an aspiration for the way leadership is configured, and draws attention to iterative relations between leadership, followership and context, but it is a conception of leadership that requires unpacking. This conceptual analysis, applied to health and social care, is offered in pursuit of this aim. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Distributed leadership is promoted as being well suited to public service organizations because of their multiple goals, less pronounced managerial authority and presence of powerful professional groups. Drawing on qualitative evidence we analyse the complex process of the institutionalization of distributed leadership in English schools. Our analysis suggests that competing institutional forces simultaneously foster and stymie the adoption of distributed leadership. Consequently, the school principals find themselves in a classic Catch-22 situation, which they resolve by enacting a weak form of distributed leadership. Ironically, the implementation of distributed leadership is the most difficult in the schools located in socially deprived areas, that is, the very context where policy-makers expect distributed leadership to make the most impact. Moving beyond our specific case, we argue that distributed leadership, and leadership more generally, cannot be divorced from its institutional context and that the relative influence of divergent institutional forces depends upon the immediate organizational environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our study of secondary schools in England illustrates the ineffective implementation of transformational leadership within public service organizations by policy-makers. First, a rather narrow, managerialist variant of transformational leadership is promoted, which is resisted by school teachers and principals. Second, associated with this, policy does not take account of the institutional context within which public services organizations operate. Third, policy-makers, rather than leaders transform the context within which leadership takes place and any leadership discretion is constrained by central government audit. Instead, moral, professional and contingent approaches to leadership are enacted at the local level with individualized, rather than dispersed leadership, as a consequence of regulatory and normative pressures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]