No abstract

This study examines how perceptions of organizational culture influence organizational outcomes, specially, individual employee job satisfaction. The study was conducted in the health care industry in the United States. It examined the data on employee perceptions of job attributes, organizational culture, and job satisfaction, collected by Press Ganey Associates from 88 hospitals across the country in 2002-2003. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to test how organizational culture affects individual employee job satisfaction. Results indicated that some dimensions of organizational culture, specifically, job security and performance recognition, play a role in improving employee job satisfaction.

Health-care organizations, particularly hospitals, are among the most complex organizations to manage. However, the executive selection processes these organizations have in place are poorly understood. The purpose of this study is to explore the executive selection processes employed by USA acute care hospitals and discern if such processes are related to environmental, structural and strategic organizational characteristics. We conceptualize this model using a configurational approach. We present an empirically derived taxonomy of hospitals based on executive selection processes, structural and environmental characteristics, and organizational strategy based on the Porter framework. Based on the analyses, three types of hospitals are identified: (1) small, rural, cost leaders with limited selection processes; (2) large, urban, differentiators, with a plan; and (3) small, rural, caught in the middle muddlers.

This study examines patient perceptions of emergency department wait times and inpatient experiences. For many hospitals across the United States, the emergency department (ED) is now the "front door"; therefore, understanding the impact of ED experience on the inpatient experience is critical for leaders managing these complex settings today. Results showed statistically significant relationships between a very good ED experience and a very good inpatient experience. Perceived wait times in the ED, more so than actual ED wait times, served as a predictor of a very good ED rating as well as a very good rating of the inpatient experience.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Little work has been done comparing the performance of hospitals with physician CEOs versus nonphysician CEOs, despite the ease of identifying this characteristic and extant leadership theories suggesting a relationship between technical expertise and success in leading highly technical organizations. We performed a detailed analysis of several widely accepted measures of clinical and financial performance across a randomly selected group of U.S. acute care hospitals with more than 40 beds and found no statistically significant differences between the two groups. The 30-day acute myocardial infarction mortality rate showed a positive statistically significant difference in the bivariate analysis (p < .001), but the effect was nullified in the multivariable regression analysis.