From unbalanced to balanced: performance measures in a Vietnamese hospital

Leadership styles and organisational innovation in Vietnam: does employee creativity matter?

Purpose

This paper aims to look into the role of transformational leadership and transactional leadership as predictors of employee creativity and organisational innovation. Employee creativity is examined as a potential mediator in the leadership styles–organisational innovation relationships.

Design/methodology/approach

A cross-sectional, quantitative design was adopted and structural equation modelling (SEM) techniques were used to analyse data collected from 369 employees working in 39 public coffee enterprises in Vietnam.

Findings

Transformational leadership and transactional leadership were significant predictors of employee creativity and organisational innovation. Specifically, transformational leadership was instrumental to employee creativity and organisational innovation while transactional leadership was detrimental to these two variables. Additionally, employee creativity partially mediated the relationships between the two leadership styles and organisational innovation.

Practical implications

Results of this study benefit the management of organisations and policy makers by providing an insight of which leadership style will effectively suit public enterprises to promote employee creativity and foster organisational innovation.

Originality/value

While there is a lack of studies investigating organisational innovation in organisational methods and that the interrelationships between leadership styles, employee creativity and organisational innovation are not fully understood, this study pioneers in examining relationships between leadership styles and organisational innovation that is being mediated by employee creativity. Figuring out that organisational innovation is more likely to be fostered by the positive influence of leadership behaviours and the improvement of employee creativity, in particular, the significant role of employee creativity represents important contributions of the current study.

HR Flexibility and Job Crafting in Public Organizations: The Roles of Knowledge Sharing and Public Service Motivation

Human resource (HR) flexibility builds employees’ flexibility to create new meanings in their jobs, contributing to the flexibility and dynamism of their team and organization. The primary research aim is to seek an insight into the relationships between HR flexibility and job crafting at both individual and team levels via knowledge sharing as a mediator. The data for variables in the research model were garnered from public employees and their supervisors from public legal service organizations in Vietnam context. The research results supported the positive links between HR flexibility and individual as well as collective job crafting through the mediating mechanism of knowledge sharing. HR flexibility also demonstrated the interaction effect with public service motivation in predicting knowledge sharing among public employees.

The effect of trust with suppliers on hospital supply chain performance

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of trust with suppliers on hospital-supplier integration (SI) and hospital supply chain (SC) performance. Additionally, the mediating effect of SI on trust-hospital SC performance is investigated.

Design/methodology/approach

A research model and hypotheses were developed based on literature review. The study is based on survey data collected from 152 respondents in 55 private hospitals in Jordan. The proposed hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling.

Findings

The paper finds that trust with suppliers has a positive impact on hospital-SI and hospital SC performance. Hospital-SI partially mediates the relationship between trust and hospital SC performance.

Practical implications

The findings of this research provide useful insights into the role of trust in boosting SC performance in the healthcare sector. High levels of SI not only improve hospital SC performance but also enhance the transformation of trust benefits into SC performance.

Originality/value

This research is one of the limited studies that investigated the effect of trust on hospital-SI and hospital SC performance in the healthcare sector. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate those relationships in the Middle East in general and in Jordan in particular.

From cultural intelligence to supply chain performance

Purpose

– Cultural intelligence (CQ) has transcended its role of adaptation to local values toward narrowing the cultural gap between foreign stakeholders and local stakeholders in the supply chain. The purpose of this paper is to decipher the catalyzing role of CQ in its chain effect, through corporate social responsibility and trust, to supply chain performance and competitive intelligence (CI).

Design/methodology/approach

– The proof for the research model was derived from the SEM-based analysis of cross-sectional data provided by 392 respondents from MNCs in Vietnamese business landscape.

Findings

– Findings, from this inquiry, produce the evidence for the positive effect of all four dimensions of CQ (metacognitive, cognitive, motivational, and behavioral CQ) on ethical and legal CSR, as well as knowledge-based and identity-based trust, which leverage supply chain performance. The connectivity between supply chain performance and CI was also established.

Originality/value

– Supply chain literature, from this research model, has increased its breadth with the novel role of CQ and stakeholder-oriented levers such as CSR in heightening supply chain performance.

Paths from leadership to upward influence

Purpose

– This inquest into consumer goods companies in Vietnam aims to examine if leadership influences corporate social responsibility (CSR) and emotional intelligence (EI), which in turn influences upward influence behavior. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

– Structural equation modeling approach contributed to the analysis of 406 responses returned from self-administered structured questionnaires sent to 690 middle level managers.

Findings

– From the findings emerged a model of upward influence behavior and its antecedents such as leadership, CSR, and EI. Transformational leadership, ethical CSR, and high level of EI were found to nurture organizationally beneficial upward influence tactics.

Originality/value

– Through the findings of the study, the insight into the leadership-based model of upward influence behavior underscores the role of transformational leadership style, ethical CSR, as well as team EI in the cultivation of organizationally beneficial upward influence tactics in consumer goods companies in Vietnam business context.

Clinical governance, corporate social responsibility, health service quality, and brand equity

Purpose

– Brand equity of hospitals is built on patient care service quality. Through the testing of the hypotheses on the relationships between brand equity and its precursors, the purpose of this paper is to examine if clinical governance effectiveness is driven by corporate social responsibility (CSR), and if clinical governance effectiveness influences patient care service quality which in turn influences brand equity.

Design/methodology/approach

– In total, 417 responses in completed form returned from self-administered structured questionnaires relayed to 835 clinical staff members underwent the structural equation modeling-based analysis.

Findings

– CSR, as the data divulges, is a strong predictor of clinical governance effectiveness which yields high patient care quality and brand equity of the hospital.

Originality/value

– The expedition to test research hypotheses constructed layer by layer of CSR-based model of hospital brand equity in which high levels of CSR among clinical members in the hospital activates clinical governance mechanism, without which, initiatives to improve patient care service quality may not be successfully implemented to augment brand equity of Vietnam-based hospitals.