Professor Rachael Finn

Management School

Chair in Organisation Studies

r.l.finn@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 3484

Room F009, Sheffield University Management School

Full contact details

Professor Rachael Finn
Management School
Room F009
Sheffield University Management School
Conduit Road
Sheffield
S10 1FL

Profile

Professor Rachael Finn is Dean of the Management School. Rachael joined the Management School in 2011 as Professor of Organisation Studies and was appointed Interim Dean of the school in July 2019.

Prior to her appointment as Dean, Rachael served as Head of the Work, Employment, People and Organisations Division within the School and previously as Director for Postgraduate Research.

Her research lies within the field of Organisation Studies, with a particular focus on the realities of health and social care organisation. She has a particular interest in critical management and qualitative methodologies, including discursive perspectives on organisational life.

Rachael studied at the University of Nottingham for both her undergraduate degree (BA joint honours in Psychology and Sociology) and her PhD in Sociology.

Rachael is currently an External Examiner for the EMBA in Healthcare at the University of Nottingham Business School.

Research interests

Professor Finn’s research takes an organisation studies perspective, with a particular focus on policies and processes or organising in the health and social care context.

She has published extensively in the field of health care organisation, worked closely with external partners (including NHS and third sector), receiving grant funding from a range of funders (e.g. NIHR, ESRC, NHS and The Health Foundation) and taking an interdisciplinary approach (e.g. collaborating with colleagues from ScHARR, School of Nursing and Medical School). Current and recent research has included:

Evaluation of the Flow Coaching Academy Quality Improvement programme (The Health Foundation)
Retention of Mental Health Staff in the NHS (The Health Foundation)
System Leadership role of Health and Wellbeing Boards in improving population health (National Institute for Health Research)
The Role of Lived Experience in the Training and Education of Mental Health Professionals (Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust)

Publications

Journal articles

Perkins N, Hunter DJ, Visram S, Finn R, Gosling J, Adams L & Forrest A (2019) Partnership or insanity : why do health partnerships do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result?. Journal of Health Services Research & Policy. View this article in WRRO
Martin GP, Currie G, Weaver S, Finn RL & McDonald R (2017) Institutional Complexity and Individual Responses: Delineating the Boundaries of Partial Autonomy. Organization Studies, 38(1), 103-127. View this article in WRRO
Lockett A, Currie G, Finn R, Martin G & Waring J (2014) The Influence of Social Position on Sensemaking about Organizational Change. Academy of Management Journal, 57(4), 1102-1129.
Currie G, Lockett A, Finn R, Martin G & Waring J (2012) Institutional Work to Maintain Professional Power: Recreating the Model of Medical Professionalism. Organization Studies, 33(7), 937-962.
Lockett A, Currie G, Waring J, Finn R & Martin G (2012) The role of institutional entrepreneurs in reforming healthcare. Social Science and Medicine, 74(3), 356-363.
Martin GP & Finn R (2011) Patients as team members: opportunities, challenges and paradoxes of including patients in multi-professional healthcare teams. Sociology of Health and Illness, 33(7), 1050-1065.
Martin GP, Currie G, Finn R & McDonald R (2011) The medium-term sustainability of organisational innovations in the national health service. Implementation Science, 6(1). View this article in WRRO
Finn R, Learmonth M & Reedy P (2010) Some unintended effects of teamwork in healthcare. Social Science and Medicine, 70(8), 1148-1154.
Finn R, Currie G & Martin G (2010) Team work in context: Institutional mediation in the public-service professional bureaucracy. Organization Studies, 31(8), 1069-1097.
Currie G, Finn R & Martin G (2010) Role transition and the interaction of relational and social identity: New nursing roles in the english NHS. Organization Studies, 31(7), 941-961.
Martin GP, Currie G & Finn R (2009) Leadership, service reform, and public-service networks: The case of cancer-genetics pilots in the english NHS. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 19(4), 769-794.
Martin G, Currie G & Finn R (2009) Bringing genetics into primary care: Findings from a national evaluation of pilots in England. Journal of Health Services Research and Policy, 14(4), 204-211.
Currie G, Finn R & Martin G (2009) Professional competition and modernizing the clinical workforce in the NHS. Work, Employment and Society, 23(2), 267-284.
Martin GP, Currie G & Finn R (2009) Reconfiguring or reproducing intra-professional boundaries? Specialist expertise, generalist knowledge and the 'modernization' of the medical workforce. Social Science and Medicine, 68(7), 1191-1198.
Currie G, Waring J & Finn R (2008) The limits of knowledge management for UK public services modernization: The case of patient safety and service quality. Public Administration, 86(2), 363-385.
Currie G, Finn R & Martin G (2008) Accounting for the 'dark side' of new organizational forms: The case of healthcare professionals. Human Relations, 61(4), 539-564.
Finn R (2008) The language of teamwork: Reproducing professional divisions in the operating theatre. Human Relations, 61(1), 103-130.
Martin GP, Finn R & Currie G (2007) National evaluation of NHS genetics service investments: Emerging issues from the cancer genetics pilots. Familial Cancer, 6(2), 257-263.
Currie G, Finn R & Martin G (2007) Spanning boundaries in pursuit of effective knowledge sharing within networks in the NHS. Journal of Health, Organisation and Management, 21(4-5), 406-417.
Finn R & Waring J (2006) Organizational barriers to architectural knowledge and teamwork in operating theatres. Public Money and Management, 26(2), 117-124.
Cohen L, Wilkinson A, Arnold J & Finn R (2005) 'Remember I'm the bloody architect'! Architects, organizations and discourses of profession. WORK EMPLOY SOC, 19(4), 775-796.
Finn R, Visram S, Hunter D, Neil P, Adams L, Gosling J & Forrest A () Health and Wellbeing Boards as theatres of accountability: A dramaturgical analysis. Local Government Studies.

Chapters

Finn R () Teamwork (pp. 2429-2434). John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Reports

Finn R, Birdi K, Wolstenholme D, Kapadi A, Bonham C, Campbell F, Fletcher R, Crimlisk H, Smith R, McCulloch G , Di Bona L et al (2019) Exploring the role of lived experience in mental health training: A scoping project
Finn R, Hunter D, Visram S, Perkins N, Adams L, Forrest A & Gosling J (2018) EVALUATING THE LEADERSHIP ROLE OF HEALTH AND WELLBEING BOARDS AS DRIVERS OF HEALTH IMPROVEMENT AND INTEGRATED CARE ACROSS ENGLAND View this article in WRRO

Research group: Organisation Studies Research Cluster

Grants

Factors affecting the Retention of Mental Health Staff (RoMHS) The Health Foundation 2019-2022
Improving flow: Developing the capability to improve patient flow The Health Foundation, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust 2018-2019 £19,904
Lived Experience in Mental Health Training Sheffield Health & Social Care NHS Foundation Trust 2017-2018 £9,973
Evaluating the leadership role of Health and Wellbeing Boards as drivers of health improvement and integrated care across England Department of Health 2016
Translating Knowledge into Action The Health Foundation, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust 2016-2017 £6,201
For whose benefit? Mobilising service-user involvement for the co-design of public services: The case of quality improvement in the NHS Sheffield Microsystem Coaching Academy 2016

Teaching activities

Rachael has a broad range of teaching experience across undergraduate, postgraduate and professional education, having taught across the fields of organisation studies, organisational behaviour and research methods.

Most recently, she has led and delivered MGT364 Language and Organisation, bringing her research expertise on discourse and micro-political organisational practices and into the classroom, encouraging critical thinking, reflexivity and awareness of organising as a socio-political process among students as future employees and managers.

Professional activities and memberships

PhD Supervision

Areas of PhD supervision:

Health and Social Care Organisation Studies
Patent and public involvement
Discourse and Organisation
Critical Management Studies