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The purpose of this study is to determine the interactions between factors such as organizational learning, feedback about errors, punitive response to errors and communication quality in hospitals in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Colombia when adopting a culture of quality and safety (CQS) in patient care.

Based on a literature review, a self-administered questionnaire was developed and used to collect data from 417 Saudi respondents affiliated with hospitals and 483 Colombian respondents at the beginning of the pandemic. Structural equation modeling is used in this study to test the hypothesized relationships.

The results show a solid and significant predictive relationship between feedback about errors and the CQS in both countries (Colombia: b = 0.55, p < 0.001; KSA: b = 0.44, p < 0.001), but a very low and insignificant predictive relationship between no punitive response to errors and CQS (Colombia: b = –0.02, p > 0.05; KSA: b = 0.05, p > 0.05).

This study demonstrates the importance of organizational learning in fostering a CQS in the health-care sector in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Colombia. Recent unprecedented policy actions motivated by the COVID-19 pandemic, such as social distancing, lockdowns and safety practices enforcement, have further highlighted this concern. Moreover, attention to the dimensions addressed in this study is required for accreditation purposes in organizations seeking to promote a CQS. Overall, this research highlights the vital role of safety and quality practices among health-care organizations, which has significant policy implications, especially in the current period of high uncertainty.

This paper contributes to the theory and practice in the health-care sector by extending the current knowledge of the impact of the quality of communications, non-punitive response to errors and feedback about errors in organizational learning and safety culture, and by presenting a novel, quantitative methodology seldom used for these topics.

Globalization and increased outsourcing have contributed to increased supply chain complexity, exposing firms to greater vulnerability in the areas of product safety and supply chain security. Meanwhile, stakeholders pressure firms to ensure that their products are safe, and their supply chains are secure. Drawing from stakeholder theory, this paper aims to explore how the supply chain characteristics of distance and power affect the adoption of consumer protection (CP) practices, which ensure product safety and supply chain security.

Using primary survey data from a sample of Canadian manufacturing firms, this research examines the relationships among supply chain characteristics, adoption of CP practices and firm performance.

Analysis supported the use of two practices related to product safety (consumer education and product design) and three practices for supply chain security (packaging, tracking and authenticity). Greater cultural distance between the focal firm and its suppliers was positively associated with investments in safer design practices, while increased geographical distance between the focal firm and the customer was significantly related to increased consumer education. Moreover, as power of a focal firm relative to its suppliers increased, so too did investments in supply chain security. Finally, CP practices were related to improved operational performance along multiple dimensions.

This research focuses on the critical role of two key stakeholder groups in improving product safety and supply chain security: suppliers and customers. The authors add to the theoretical discussion of product safety and supply chain security by identifying critical differences between suppliers and customers for the focal firm. Second, the research informs the managerial community of the potential benefits of investments in CP practices.

This chapter identifies the five new roles that are critical to establishing and sustaining a knowledge preservation and curation practice. For each role, the authors describe fundamental responsibilities and competencies. Two of the roles support knowledge preservation, including business knowledge analyst and specialized knowledge preservationist. Three of the roles support knowledge curation including business interlocutor/translator, knowledge curator, and knowledge asset developer. Each role faces peculiar challenges in a dynamic and chaotic knowledge economy.

Adverse events in health care became more evident at the beginning of the 21st century, being an emerging problem worldwide and impacting the lives of people receiving health care, contributing to preventable injuries and deaths. This evidence has motivated the development of specific training in the area of patient safety with a strong focus on the education and training of health professionals, and, more recently, it also aimed at patient, informal caregiver and all citizens. In this sense, the use of digital technology for patient safety training has been an important challenge and proves to be a good solution for training and continuous learning, both for professionals and people in general. The use of multimedia, videos, games, simulators, among others, are effectively essential resources to improve people’s health literacy and safety of care.

This chapter presents a narrative review on patient safety training and the contributions of digital technology. The experience report will also be used, presenting some examples of quality improvement projects developed by Portuguese and Brazilian entities, in training contexts, highlighting the importance of investing in the health literacy of professionals, patients/informal caregivers and civil society, through applying specific techniques and using digital technology.

This chapter considers how to ensure that both knowledge preservation and curation are well supported in the architecture and infrastructure of any organization. Support at the enterprise architecture is critical if the business goals of use, reuse, curation, and recuration in the business context are to be achieved. Enterprise architecture is explained – its vertical and horizontal approaches. Preservation is aligned with the information and data architecture. Curation is defined as a new element in the business architecture layer. The authors explain how this approach supports variations in practice across the organization.