Thomas Andersson, Nomie Eriksson and Tomas Müllern
The purpose of the paper is to describe and analyze differences in patients' quality perceptions of private and public primary care centers in Sweden.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the paper is to describe and analyze differences in patients' quality perceptions of private and public primary care centers in Sweden.
Design/methodology/approach
The article explores the differences in quality perceptions between patients of public and private primary care centers based on data from a large patient survey in Sweden. The survey covers seven dimensions, and in this paper the measure Overall impression was used for the comparison. With more than 80,000 valid responses, the survey covers all primary care centers in Sweden which allowed for a detailed analysis of differences in quality perceptions among patients from the different categories of owners.
Findings
The article contributes with a detailed description of different types of private owners: not-for-profit and for profit, as well as corporate groups and independent care centers. The results show a higher quality perception for independent centers compared to both public and corporate groups.
Research limitations/implications
The small number of not-for-profit centers (21 out of 1,117 centers) does not allow for clear conclusions for this group. The results, however, indicate an even higher patient quality perception for not-for-profit centers. The study focus on describing differences in quality perceptions between the owner categories. Future research can contribute with explanations to why independent care centers receive higher patient satisfaction.
Social implications
The results from the study have policy implications both in a Swedish as well as international perspective. The differentiation between different types of private owners made in this paper opens up for interesting discussions on privatization of healthcare and how it affects patient satisfaction.
Originality/value
The main contribution of the paper is the detailed comparison of different categories of private owners and the public owners.
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Thomas Andersson, Nomie Eriksson and Tomas Müllern
The purpose of the article is to analyze how physicians and nurses, as the two major health care professions, experience psychological empowerment for managerial work.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the article is to analyze how physicians and nurses, as the two major health care professions, experience psychological empowerment for managerial work.
Design/methodology/approach
The study was designed as a qualitative interview study at four primary care centers (PCCs) in Sweden. In total, 47 interviews were conducted, mainly with physicians and nurses. The first inductive analysis led us to the concept of psychological empowerment, which was used in the next deductive step of the analysis.
Findings
The study showed that both professions experienced self-determination for managerial work, but that nurses were more dependent on structural empowerment. Nurses experienced that they had competence for managerial work, whereas physicians were more ignorant of such competence. Nurses used managerial work to create impact on the conditions for their clinical work, whereas physicians experienced impact independently. Both nurses and physicians experienced managerial work as meaningful, but less meaningful than nurses and physicians' clinical work.
Practical implications
For an effective health care system, structural changes in terms of positions, roles, and responsibilities can be an important route for especially nurses' psychological empowerment.
Originality/value
The qualitative method provided a complementary understanding of psychological empowerment on how psychological empowerment interacted with other factors. One such aspect was nurses' higher dependence on structural empowerment, but the most important aspect was that both physicians and nurses experienced that managerial work was less meaningful than clinical work. This implies that psychological empowerment for managerial work may only make a difference if psychological empowerment does not compete with physicians' and nurses' clinical work.
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Helén Anderson, Tomas Müllern and Mike Danilovic
The purpose is to identify and explore barriers to overcome for developing collaborative innovation between a global service supplier and two of its industrial customers in Sweden.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose is to identify and explore barriers to overcome for developing collaborative innovation between a global service supplier and two of its industrial customers in Sweden.
Design/methodology/approach
The research had an action-based research approach in which the researchers were interacting and collaborating with the practitioners in the companies. The empirical part includes primary data from multiple interviews, and two workshops with dialogues with participants from the involved companies. The use of complementary data collection methods gave rich input to understanding the context for collaborative innovation, and to uncovering barriers, to develop solutions for collaborative innovation. The empirical barriers were analysed using theoretically derived barriers from a literature review. The analysis generated four broad themes of barriers which were discussed and led to conclusions and theoretical and practical implications on: the customer's safety culture, the business model, the parties' understanding of innovation and the management of collaborative innovation in supply chains.
Findings
The thematic analysis generated four broad themes: the customer's safety culture, the business model, the parties' understanding of innovation and the management of collaborative innovation. These themes where analysed using theoretically derived barriers from a literature review. The industrial context, the understanding of innovation and its management created barriers.
Originality/value
The unique access to the service supplier and its two independent industrial customers adds a rich contextual framing to the process of identifying and exploring the barriers to collaborative innovation. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of an industrial business context, the business logic in terms of business models and for the understanding and management of collaborative innovation.
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Markus Hällgren, Andreas Nilsson, Tomas Blomquist and Anders Söderholm
The purpose of this paper is to critically analyze the consequences of the diffusion of generic project management knowledge.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to critically analyze the consequences of the diffusion of generic project management knowledge.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is conceptual in its nature, using short examples of four different areas (education, research, certification and practice) to show the diffusion of project management knowledge throughout these areas.
Findings
In this paper the authors argue that relevance may be lost at two levels. The first loss occurs when the practice of project management is transferred, through generalisation and standardisation, into what is generally known as “Best Practice”. The second occurs when “Best Practice” is transferred back to where it is applied (education, research, certification and practice).
Research limitations/implications
The risk of losing relevance has consequences for what one bases one's assumptions of the nature of projects upon. If the assumptions are based on standardized knowledge, without critically assessing its correctness, the likelihood of producing less relevant research is higher.
Practical implications
With the risk of losing relevance the authors argue that anyone involved in the areas of education, research, certification and practice needs to be cautious of how they perceive and work with the standards. There is a risk that the knowledge becomes even less relevant and students and practitioners are therefore less prepared for reality.
Originality/value
This paper is part of the literature critiquing the standardization of project management knowledge but it is distinct in terms of how the diffusion processes are perceived and utilized in a project setting.