A dynamic capabilities view of improvement capability

Strategic hospital resilience capability response to adversity: fusing government regulation and COVID-19 pandemic

PURPOSE

Strategic leadership plays an important role in achieving organizational success in surviving and growing in a challenging business environment. This study aims to examine the role of strategic leadership in responding to a rare moment in the health industry, which is the combination of government regulations that tend to continue to change and the emergence of COVID-19 pandemic.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH

A total of 358 respondents from 141 type C and D hospitals in Indonesia participated in this research. This study used six latent variables and 27 dimensions, processed using structural equation modeling.

FINDINGS

The results of this study confirmed that resilient leaders will not seek new partners by developing network capabilities; but rather choose to save the hospital first, by resources reconfiguration as response to the unanticipated adversity caused by fusing the government regulation and emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE

This study makes an important contribution that enables hospital management to develop action plans in response to national health-care regulations coupled with the emergence and extension of the COVID-19 pandemic; as well as the results of the investigation into organizational resources, and to implement strategic resilience capability more effectively.

COVID-19 healthcare success or failure? Crisis management explained by dynamic capabilities

INTRODUCTION

This paper presents a structured review of the use of crisis management, specifically examining the frameworks of surge capacity, resilience, and dynamic capabilities in healthcare organizations. Thereafter, a novel deductive method based on the framework of dynamic capabilities is developed and applied to investigate crisis management in two hospital cases during the COVID-19 pandemic.

BACKGROUND

The COVID-19 pandemic distinguishes itself from many other disasters due to its global spread, uncertainty, and prolonged duration. While crisis management in healthcare has often been explained using the surge capacity framework, the need for adaptability in an unfamiliar setting and different information flow makes the dynamic capabilities framework more useful.

METHODS

The dynamic capabilities framework's microfoundations as categories is utilized in this paper for a deductive analysis of crisis management during the COVID-19 pandemic in a multiple case study involving two Swedish public hospitals. A novel method, incorporating both dynamic and static capabilities across multiple organizational levels, is developed and explored.

RESULTS

The case study results reveal the utilization of all dynamic capabilities with an increased emphasis at lower organizational levels and a higher prevalence of static capabilities at the regional level. In Case A, lower-level managers perceived the hospital manager as brave, supporting sensing, seizing, and transformation at the department level. However, due to information gaps, sensing did not reach regional crisis management, reducing their power. In Case B, with contingency plans not initiated, the hospital faced a lack of management and formed a department manager group for patient care. Seizing was robust at the department level, but regional levels struggled with decisions on crisis versus normal management. The novel method effectively visualizes differences between organizational levels and cases, shedding light on the extent of cooperation or lack thereof within the organization.

CONCLUSION

The researchers conclude that crisis management in a pandemic, benefits from distributed management, attributed to higher dynamic capabilities at lower organizational levels. A pandemic contingency plan should differ from a plan for accidents, supporting the development of routines for the new situation and continuous improvement. The Dynamic Capabilities framework proved successful for exploration in this context.

The ties that bind: innovation configurations in low- and middle-income healthcare delivery settings

PURPOSE

This study examines innovation configurations (i.e. sets of product/service, social and business model innovations) and configuration linkages (i.e. factors that help to combine innovations) across six organizations as contingent upon organizational structure.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH

Using semi-structured interviews and available public information, qualitative data were collected and examined using content analysis to characterize innovation configurations and linkages in three local/private organizations and three foreign-led/public-private partnerships in Repiblik Ayiti (Haiti).

FINDINGS

Organizations tend to combine product/service, social, and business model innovations simultaneously in locally founded private organizations and sequentially in foreign-based public-private partnerships. Linkages for simultaneous combination include limited external support, determined autonomy and shifting from a "beneficiary mindset," and financial need identification. Sequential combination linkages include social need identification, community connections and flexibility.

RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS

The generalizability of our findings for this qualitative study is subject to additional quantitative studies to empirically test the suggested factors and to examine other health care organizations and countries.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

Locally led private organizations in low- and middle-income settings may benefit from considering how their innovations are in service to one another as they may have limited resources. Foreign based public-private partnerships may benefit from pacing their efforts alongside a broader set of stakeholders and ecosystem partners.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE

This study is the first, to our knowledge, to examine how organizations combine sets of innovations, i.e. innovation configurations, in a healthcare setting and the first of any setting to examine innovation configuration linkages.

Examining the mediating role of dynamic capabilities in the relationship between information and communication technologies and sustainable performance

Purpose

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) enable firms to improve their processes to remain competitive and profitable in today’s market. These demands not only value economic results but also social impact and environmental care. In other words, firms must achieve sustainable performance. However, to take on these new sustainability challenges, firms must have dynamic capabilities to take advantage of highly changing technology. Thus, this study aims to examine the mediating role of dynamic capabilities in the relationship between ICT and sustainable performance.

Design/methodology/approach

This study was empirical, associative and explanatory, following a latent variable design. The sample of the study consisted of partners, founders, executives and promoters from 102 Colombian new technology-based firms selected through purposive non-probabilistic sampling. Variance-based structural equation modeling or partial least squares was used for the statistical data analysis.

Findings

A higher-order model was tested, corroborating that ICT was composed of two dimensions (use and acquisition), dynamic capabilities were composed of three dimensions (absorption, innovation and adaptation), while sustainable performance showed a unidimensional structure. As for the research hypotheses, all the direct effects were supported, as well as the mediating effect of dynamic capability in the relationship between ICT and sustainable performance, this being a complementary mediation.

Originality/value

This study highlights the importance of dynamic capabilities for firms today, especially those working with high levels of technology. Also, considering the results obtained, firms must implement better strategies in the acquisition and use of technology to improve their sustainable performance in dynamic and uncertain environments.

Dynamic Capabilities and Their Impact on Intellectual Capital and Innovation Performance

There is a high tendency for conversion from a statistical economy based on measuring tangible assets into investigating non-tangible capital drive in the present economic status worldwide. The implications of intellectual capital on innovation performance have widely attracted attention among researchers in the global arena. The present study investigated the impacts of intellectual capital on innovation performance in the banking sector as influencing non-tangible assets. Besides, the role of dynamic capabilities in moderating the relationship between intellectual capital and innovation performance was examined. A purposive sampling technique was applied to 364 participants from Iraqi commercial banks as the research context. Thereafter, structural equation modelling (SEM) was utilised to analyse the collected data from the survey questionnaire using SPSS.v25 and AMOS.v24. The study found that the employees’ levels of intellectual capital significantly increased toward innovativeness through the moderating role of dynamic capabilities between intellectual capital and innovation performance in the commercial banking sector for better competitive advantages. Consequently, the study provides valuable insights and guidance for academicians and practitioners on the impacts of developing intellectual capital on enhancing competitive performance, especially in the context of Iraqi commercial banks.

Operations management on the front line of COVID-19 vaccination: building capability at scale via technology-enhanced learning

The globe is gripped by the COVID-19 pandemic. Mass population vaccination is seen as the solution. As vaccines become available, governments aim to deploy them as rapidly as possible. It is important, therefore, that the efficiency of vaccination processes is optimal.

Operations management is concerned with improving processes and comprises systematic approaches such as Lean. Lean focuses explicitly on process efficiency through the elimination of non-value adding steps to optimise processes for those who use and depend on them.

Technology-enhanced learning can be a strategy to build improvement capability at scale. A massive online programme to build capability in Lean has been developed by the regulator of England's National Health Service. Beta testing of this programme has been used by some test sites to refine their COVID-19 vaccination processes. The paper presents a case example of massive online learning supporting the use of Lean in the day-to-day operations management of COVID-19 vaccine processes.

The case example illustrates the challenges that vaccination processes may present and the need for responsive and effective operations management. Building capability to respond rapidly and systematically in dynamic situations to optimise flow, safety and patient experience may be beneficial.

Given the national imperative to achieve mass vaccination as rapidly as possible, systematic improvement methods such as Lean may have a contribution to make. Massive online programmes, such as that described here, may help with this effort by achieving timely knowledge transfer at large scale.

The microfoundations of physicians' managerial attitude

Background

Accountable care has profoundly changed the organizational models adopted by health care organizations and, consequently, the skill set required for doctor-managers who have become middle managers and must deal with the operational management of their units. The aim of this study was to identify the psychological microfoundations (i.e., traits) of physicians’ managerial attitude. Specifically, we analysed the roles played by narcissism, specialization choices and identification with the organization.

Methods

We collected primary data on a population of ward unit heads in the Italian National Health Service. A logistic regression model predicting the levels of managerial attitude was employed.

Results

The results indicate that high levels of narcissism and identification with the organization are related to higher managerial attitude (instead of clinical attitude). Additionally, we found that physicians with a technique-oriented specialization present a higher probability of manifesting managerial attitude (in comparison to clinical attitude).

Conclusions

Hospital managers can benefit from the use of these findings by developing a strategic approach to human resource management that allows them to identify, train and select the right mix of technical knowledge and managerial skills for middle-management roles.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12913-021-06210-z.