Does organizational vision really matter? An empirical examination of factors related to organizational vision integration among hospital employees

Driving innovation in health care: exploring the impact of ambidextrous leadership on creative performance among frontline health professionals in Norway

BACKGROUND

In recent years, there has been an increasing focus on enhancing frontline health professionals' ability to think and act innovatively, also known as their creative performance. However, previous research has had two limitations. First, only a few leadership styles and their associations with this capability have been examined. Second, there has been a lack of research on identifying potential process mediators and examining their role in the relationship between leadership styles and the professionals' capability. To address this knowledge gap, our study investigates the impact of ambidextrous leadership, a relatively new leadership style, on frontline health professionals' creative performance. Additionally, we explore whether frontline health professionals' learning orientation (an individual factor) and relationship learning (an organizational factor) act as process mediators in this association. No previous research has focused on these relationships. Thus, the study offers a unique contribution to health services research.

METHODS

This is a cross-sectional study with a convenience sample of N = 258 health professionals in nine Norwegian municipalities. The results of this study were analyzed using PLS-SEM with SmartPLS 3 software. The study examined both direct and indirect relationships through bootstrapping.

RESULTS

The results reveal a positive link between health professionals' creative performance and ambidextrous leadership [Formula: see text] = 0.224). Both relationship learning and learning orientation were found to operate as complementary process-mediating factors between health professionals' creative performance and ambidextrous leadership. The strength of the two individual relationships that constitute the process-mediating factors indicates that ambidextrous leadership has a stronger impact on relationship learning than on learning orientation [Formula: see text] = 0.504 versus β = 0.276). However, when we examined the individual associations between the two factors and creative performance, the strength of the relationships was quite different. The findings reveal that learning orientation is significantly more positively associated with creative performance than relationship learning [Formula: see text] = 0.302 versus β = 0.163). Ambidextrous leadership, learning orientation, and relationship learning explain 26% (R2 = 0.262) of the variance in professionals' creative performance.

CONCLUSIONS

This study suggests that ambidextrous leadership can facilitate health professionals' creative performance directly and indirectly through the two process-mediating factors: relationship learning and learning orientation. Thus, a practical implication is the importance for health service organizations of clear awareness of the numerous advantages of having leaders who actively practice an ambidextrous leadership style.

Implementing an oral health policy in long-term care facilities for older adults in Flanders, Belgium: The Oral Health Care Track

BACKGROUND

The oral health of care-dependent older people living in residential care facilities is generally suboptimal. To facilitate adequate daily oral care and timely referral to a dental professional, studies emphasise the need for sustainable, structured oral healthcare policies in aged care organisations. The effect of such interventions is often limited or uncertain owing to a lack of understanding of how effective the integration and implementation of the policy has been within the facilities. This study reports on the development of a method to adequately implement an oral healthcare policy in long-term care organisations for older adults.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

An intervention mapping protocol was used to develop a theory- and practise-based methodology. This step-by-step approach combined findings from a literature review, experiences from earlier projects and behaviour change theories in a multilevel programme.

RESULTS

Intervention mapping yielded a systematic programme for implementing an oral healthcare policy in aged care organisations. The Oral Health Care Track or "De Mondzorglijn" comprises seven phases, each subdivided into several tasks. The programme's implementation is guided by oral healthcare coaches.

CONCLUSION

By using intervention mapping, it was possible to combine behaviour change theories, information derived from needs assessment and earlier experiences into a comprehensive programme to improve the oral health and quality of life of older residents in residential care facilities. Further research is needed to evaluate the use of coaches in the implementation of the Oral Health Care Track.

Understanding the connection between hospital goals and patient and family engagement: A scoping review

The person-centered care movement has influenced hospitals to make patient and family engagement (PE) an explicit commitment in their strategic plans. This is often reflected in mission, vision, and value (MVV) statements, which are organizational artifacts intended to influence the attitudes, beliefs, and actions of hospital teams and employees because of their saliency in organizational documents and communications. Previous research has found that organizational goals for PE, like those articulated in MVV statements, can lead to effective and meaningful PE. However, a deeper understanding of how and under which circumstances MVV statements encourage and promote PE practices is needed. A scoping review was conducted to understand the connection between hospital PE goals (such as MVV statements) and PE processes and practices. The research question was: what is known about how hospital MVV statements relate to PE processes and activities? Following Arksey and O'Malley's scoping review approach, 27 articles were identified as relevant to the research question. These articles revealed five strategies that help realize hospital PE goals: communicating organizational goals; aligning documents that convey organizational goals; aligning organizational processes to support PE; providing employees with resources and support; and motivating and empowering employees to integrate PE into their work. We discuss the implications of misalignment between hospital goals and practices, which reduce team and individual motivation toward hospital PE goals.

Website mission statements of dermatology residency programs: a cross-sectional study

Recent calls for increased transparency from dermatology residency programs have revealed important opportunities, particularly including information on program websites. One piece of information that may especially benefit applicants assessing potential training programs is the program's mission statement. From August 9, 2022, to August 21, 2022, the websites of all ACGME-accredited dermatology residencies were examined to investigate the use and content of mission statements. Statements were categorized based on inclusion of mission, vision, virtue/value, aims, and goals. A total of 133 out of 143 dermatology programs (93.0%) were included. Overall, 46.15% of programs used at least one of the five mission statement categories on their websites, while 53.85% used none. Programs used the category "mission" (39.85%) most, and "vision" (3.01%) least. There was overlap in word choice across categories. The word "care" was among the top four words used in every category. Other words to appear frequently across multiple categories included "dermatology" (4/5), "residents" (3/5), "knowledge" (2/5), and "provide" (2/5). Other top words included "clinical" in the mission category, "advanced" and "leaders" in the vision category, "excellence" and "diversity" in the value/virtue category, and "patient" and "professional" in the objective category. Explicitly stating residency program missions may not only help programs plan more effectively, but also help applicants who may be undecided about which programs best align with their career goals.

Nurse leadership in promoting and supporting civility in health care settings: A scoping review

AIM

This scoping review aimed to identify the existing evidence on how nurse leaders promote and maintain civility amongst nurses in health care settings.

BACKGROUND

Research on managing workplace incivility in nursing, a prevalent and concerning issue worldwide, recommends nurse leaders to command cultural change through strong leadership and civility interventions. However, there is very little empirical evidence summarizing and analysing how nurse leaders pragmatically achieve civility, and combat workplace incivility, in the health care setting.

EVALUATION

A scoping review was undertaken using the electronic databases CINAHL, Emerald Insight, MEDLINE, PsychINFO, PubMed and Scopus. Google Scholar was used to search for grey literature.

KEY ISSUES

The eight studies included in this review describe how nurse leaders promote and maintain civility under four key themes: (1) creating a shared vision, (2) educating self and others, (3) fostering accountability and (4) providing support.

CONCLUSION

The review provides an overview of commonly used strategies and actions that pragmatically promote and maintain civility in the health care setting by nurse leaders, while also highlighting areas of future research needed to strengthen the evidence base.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT

It is important for nurse leaders to gain an understanding of evidence-based practices when addressing workplace incivility in order to address this prevailing problem for the future and safety of nurses moving forward.

Promoting organizational vision integration among hospital employees

Background

The concept of organizational vision has been little explored in the health-care services research literature. To address this knowledge gap in the literature, the present study examines the factors that may promote organizational vision integration (OVI), which refers to the employees’ use of organizational vision as a guiding framework in their work. The roles of organizational commitment (OC), leadership autonomy support (LAS), and organizational culture in relation to hospital employees’ OVI are examined.

Methods

Hospital employees were surveyed. Partial least-squares structural equation modeling was performed using SmartPLS 3 software to test the proposed hypotheses statistically. A bootstrapping test was used to identify the mediating effects.

Results

The main findings show that: (i) OC is the most powerful factor in promoting employees’ OVI (β = 0.26), while organizational culture (represented by the concept of internal market-oriented culture) and LAS showed significantly less and almost equal impact (β = 0.16 and β = 0.15, respectively). In total, OC, organizational culture and LAS explain 25% of the variance in the concept of OVI. (ii) LAS and organizational culture both significantly contribute to employees’ OC (β = 0.35 and β = 0.29, respectively) and in total explain nearly 40% (R² = 0.38) of the variance in the concept of OC. (iii) The relationships between organizational culture, LAS, and OVI are mediated through OC, and (iv) LAS mediates the relationship between organizational culture and OVI, and that between organizational culture and OC.

Conclusions

To promote hospital employees’ OVI effectively, hospital managers should focus particularly on their employees’ OC. Specifically, they should strengthen their employees’ OC through building a strong employee-focused organizational culture and ensuring that leaders practice LAS. This contributes to promoting hospital employees’ OVI.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12913-021-07430-z.