Healthcare managers, professionals and service users operate in an increasingly complex environment in terms of policy, regulation and governance arrangements. The policy process is becoming pluralised as competing narratives are drawn upon to influence practice. A wide range of contradictory and inconsistent policies are on offer to healthcare stakeholders, which ultimately results in a broad spectrum of responses, adaptations and improvisations throughout the process of policy implementation. The impact on managerial and professional practice is significant: Whilst some voices are suppressed or ignored, the complex nature of contemporary policy contexts can also help local actors exercise their agency and advance their agenda.

This edited volume investigates how contemporary policy trends are influencing healthcare systems, organisations and professions and explores the various ways in which policy implementation could be enacted, resisted and reinvented by healthcare managers and professionals on the ground. It sheds light on the complex web of connections that exist between policy development (Part I), its translation into practice (Part II), and the activities of organisational leaders who are trying their best to make sense of - and succeed in - challenging policy contexts (Part III).

Roman Kislov is Director of the Decent Work and Productivity Research Centre in Manchester Metropolitan University and Deputy Theme Lead for Implementation Science in the National Institute for Health Research Applied Research Collaboration (NIHR ARC) Greater Manchester. He is Secretary of the Society for Studies in Organising Health Care (SHOC).

Diane Burns is Senior Lecturer in Organisation Studies at Sheffield University Management School. She is Deputy Chair of SHOC and serves on the Leadership Group of the Sustainable Care Research Programme funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council.

Bjørn Erik Mørk is Professor of Innovation, Research Centre Leader for the Centre for Healthcare Management and Programme Director for Healthcare Management at BI Norwegian Business School.

Kathleen Montgomery is Professor of the Graduate Division and Emerita Professor of Organisations and Management at the University of California, Riverside. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.