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The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of a mixed methods study that explored how active community engaged and connected managers were in their local and broader communities (engaged leadership, EL). The paper specifically investigates an under researched aspect of EL – “connectorship” – with focus on developing a measure for connectorship. The authors present the conceptual framework for EL, followed by the operationalization of “connectorship” construct.

The paper focusses on developing a measure for connectorship using data from a qualitative study of 18 senior managers followed by a survey of 458 managers in Canada.

Content analyses of qualitative data led to the generation of 93 items measuring connectorship. Based on these items, quantitative analyses of survey data from 453 respondents yielded a final measure of connectorship, which consisted of 28 items explored under eight dimensions.

An organization’s emphasis on connectedness and engagement of leaders will improve knowledge sharing and better mutual understanding of organizational issues among managers. It will also help attain employment stability and decrease hiring and related costs by reducing turnover. Future research, specifically longitudinal studies of leaders at various organizational levels, could incorporate connectorship as a key criterion for leadership effectiveness.

The focus on connectorship skills implies that in organizations the emphasis should go beyond traditional leadership skills development and included the neglected connectorship skills development. Increased connectedness and engagement among leaders will have positive performance implications.

For effective corporate citizenship, the EL framework and a focus on connectorship would help leaders better understand the importance of social networks, be aware of their own network, and improve their skills in connecting the people within their networks.

Using a variable centered approach within the framework of EL the paper contributes to leadership literature by conceptually defining connectorship developing a measure for this construct and testing its psychometric properties.

Using a modified version of the service profit chain, the purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating role of service climate (SC) by exploring predictors of SC (i.e. service training (ST), managerial practices (MP), physical design (PD), and job design ( JD), job satisfaction ( JS), and employee empowerment) on service quality (SQ), client satisfaction (CS) with service, and client empowerment (CE). The larger proposition being that certain structural variables, through their impact on SC have the potential to positively influence outcomes in health care.

Registered nurses (N=180) from emergency departments across one province in Canada provided information about internal SQ (i.e. ST, MP, PD, and JD), JS, feelings of empowerment, and SC. Furthermore, these nurses provided information on external SQ, CS with service, and CE by responding to questions from the vantage point of the client. The data were analyzed using statistical package for the social sciences; structural equation modelling (SEM) was implemented using LISREL.

SEM analyses showed that JS and empowerment only partially mediated the relationship between MP, PD, and JD and SC. In addition, SQ, CS with service, and CE were fully mediated by SC.

A limitation of this study is that the researcher used only employee (nurses) data rather than employee and client data simultaneously in the research model. Future research should be done on the service profit chain theory to incorporate both viewpoints. In addition, research could be carried out in other service occupations and organizations to test the invariance of the research model.

The results should lead health care managers to consider the importance of emphasizing internal SQ features that facilitate SC in health care.

This contribution of this research is apply the service profit chain framework in exploring the role of SC in health care. In addition, emphasize the importance of the PD of emergency department to creating a climate for service in health care.

This paper aims to identify the kind of internal climate leaders should offer health-care professionals to promote a patient safety culture in public hospitals managed by social health organizations in Brazil.

Two surveys were applied to health-care professionals working at three Brazilian public hospitals. The internal climate survey reached 1,013 respondents, and the patient safety culture survey reached 1,302 participants. Both factor and regression analyses were used to analyze the study model and determine how internal climate influences patient safety culture.

Results indicate that to promote a patient safety culture among health-care professionals, leaders should generate an internal climate based on trust to foster pride in working in the hospital. Possibly, the trust dimension is the most important one and must be developed to achieve job satisfaction and provide better services to patients.

All the hospitals studied were managed by the same Organização Social de Saúde. Due to the limited responses concerning the respondents’ profiles, demographic variables were not analyzed.

This research reveals that the trust and pride dimensions can most strongly influence a positive patient safety culture, helping hospital leaders face this huge managerial challenge of consistently delivering high standards of patient safety.

This research studies the promotion of a patient safety culture in public hospitals managed by social health organizations, characterized by greater flexibility and autonomy in health-care management and by a greater need for accountability.