Individual responses to hybrid professionalism: a systematic literature review and proposal for future research

Abstract

Hybrid professionalism involves integrating the managerial logic of standardization and fiscal efficiency into professional practices that have traditionally valued autonomy, quality, and commitment to the public good. Hybrid professionals among the established professions (e.g. law, medicine, accounting, and engineering) studied in this review are involved in hybrid professional-managerial roles, such as legal directors, nurse managers, clinical directors, or audit managers. They combine both professional and managerial responsibilities. Although research of hybrid professionalism spans over three decades, an integrated understanding of how and why individual professionals respond to working in hybrid roles is lacking. This limits our understanding of how individual professionals contribute to the transformation of professional practice. To address this gap, we conducted this systematic literature review of sixty-four articles exploring how professionals respond to work in hybrid professional-managerial roles and why. Thematic analysis of these articles identified three responses and their underlying reasons: not taking on hybrid roles, passive hybridizing, and active hybridizing. The review further conceptualizes collaborative control, adaptive autonomy, and integrative competence as the individual-level dynamics underpinning hybrid professionalism. This conceptualization offers theoretical scaffolding for studying the role of individual professionals in fostering hybrid professionalism. Implications and avenues for future research are discussed.