Joanne Lyubovnikova

Collective leadership for cultures of high quality health care

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the challenges that health care organizations face in nurturing and sustaining cultures that ensure the delivery of continually improving, high quality and compassionate care for patients and other service users. Design/methodology/approach – Based on an extensive review of the literature, the authors examine the current and very challenging context of health care and highlight the core cultural elements needed to enable health care organizations to respond effectively to the challenges identified. Findings – The role of leadership is found to be critical for nurturing high-quality care cultures. In particular, the authors focus on the construct of collective leadership and examine how this type of leadership style ensures that all staff take responsibility for ensuring high-quality care for patients. Practical implications – Climates for quality and safety can be accomplished by the development of strategies that ensure leaders, leadership skills and lead...

24-Karat or fool’s gold? Consequences of real team and co-acting group membership in healthcare organizations

Although theory on team membership is emerging, limited empirical attention has been paid to the effects of different types of team membership on outcomes. We propose that an important but overlooked distinction is that between membership of real teams and membership of co-acting groups, with the former being characterized by members who report that their teams have shared objectives, and structural interdependence and engage in team reflexivity. We hypothesize that real team membership will be associated with more positive individual- and organizational-level outcomes. These predictions were tested in the English National Health Service, using data from 62,733 respondents from 147 acute hospitals. The results revealed that individuals reporting the characteristics of real team membership, in comparison with those reporting the characteristics of co-acting group membership, witnessed fewer errors and incidents, experienced fewer work related injuries and illness, were less likely to be victims of violence and harassment, and were less likely to intend to leave their current employment. At the organizational level, hospitals with higher proportions of staff reporting the characteristics of real team membership had lower levels of patient mortality and sickness absence. The results suggest the need to clearly delineate real team membership in order to advance scientific understanding of the processes and outcomes of organizational teamwork.

How are task reflexivity and intercultural sensitivity related to the academic performance of MBA students

Higher education in business school environments is increasingly focused on how to best equip students with the skills necessary for leadership in the global workplace. This paper examines the impact of two particularly important cognitive capabilities – task reflexivity and intercultural sensitivity, on academic performance in an MBA programme. It was hypothesised that in an intercultural learning environment, task reflexivity would be associated with higher academic performance, and that this relationship would be mediated via intercultural sensitivity. Questionnaire data from 77 MBA students was analysed alongside academic performance. Results demonstrated that task reflexivity was indirectly related to academic performance through intercultural sensitivity. These findings suggest that engagement in task reflexivity enables students to develop greater levels of intercultural sensitivity, allowing them to reap the positive effects of diversity in their peer group for their own learning and performance. Limitations and practical implications of the research for professional practice are discussed.

Positive Project Management Teams

Teams are fast becoming the normal organizing principle across the world. A project team is a particular type of work group that is typically short-lived, assigned a specific task which tends to be ill-defined and non-routine, and comprised of team members with a diverse array of skills, expertise, and experience. Although researchers have developed numerous concepts for developing effective teamwork, project teams require special attention in response to these unique characteristics. So how can organizations enable the effectiveness of their project management teams? In this chapter, we approach this problem by drawing upon principles of positive psychology to understand how to best develop and facilitate effective project management teams, based on eight key team processes.

Positives Projektmanagement in Teams

Teams werden weltweit zunehmend zum normalen Organisationsprinzip. Ein Projektteam ist eine spezifische Art von Arbeitsgruppe, die typischerweise kurzlebig ist, die eine bestimmte Aufgabe bekommt, welche eher unklar definiert und nicht routinemasig ist, und die aus Teammitgliedern mit einem breiten Spektrum an Fertigkeiten, Expertise und Erfahrung besteht. Zwar haben Forscher viele Konzepte fur die Entwicklung effektiver Teamarbeit entwickelt, doch Projektteams erfordern aufgrund ihrer Besonderheiten ein spezielles Augenmerk. Wie also konnen Organisationen die Wirksamkeit ihrer Projektteams fordern? In diesem Kapitel widmen wir uns dieser Frage und erlautern auf der Grundlage der positiven Psychologie, wie Projektteams anhand von acht Kernprozessen wirksam entwickelt und unterstutzt werden konnen.

Congruency of resources and demands and their effects on staff turnover within the English health care sector

This study examines, at the organizational level, the congruency between job demands and resources and their effects on staff turnover within the English healthcare sector. Polynomial regression analyses conducted on 164 acute hospitals trusts found support for the predictions that organizations with congruent levels of resources and demands would have relatively low staff turnover whereas those with incongruent levels would have relatively high staff turnover. Overall the study indicates that individual job design should be considered within a broader organizational design perspective.

Examining the Indirect Effects of Perceived Organizational Support for Teamwork Training on Acute Health Care Team Productivity and Innovation: The Role of Shared Objectives

This study examines the relationship between a specific type of team climate for perceived organizational support, team perceived organizational support for teamwork training (team POS-TT), and its effects on the productivity and innovation of acute health care teams. Drawing on organizational support theory, we examine how this relationship emerges via the mediating mechanism of shared objectives. Using survey data from 88 teams based in 13 health care organizations across the United Kingdom, we found support for the indirect effects of team POS-TT via shared objectives, but not for the direct effect of team POS-TT, thus indicating a mediated relationship with team productivity and innovation. As predicted, through the satisfaction of important esteem and affiliation needs of team members, team POS-TT compelled teams to engage in the process of generating shared objectives, which, in turn, positively predicted team productivity and innovation. These findings contribute to the scant literature on perceived organizational support (POS) as a form of team climate, and respond to recent calls to consider different types of POS by focusing on perceived support for teamwork training, an area which has particular relevance in the context of health care. Furthermore, the study serves to extend understanding regarding exactly how team POS-TT affects team outcomes via the specific process of shared objectives. We conclude with a discussion of these contributions to the literature and delineate several practical implications for leaders and managers in health care organizations.