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The challenges facing today's Mexican migrant population, almost a third of the US migrant population, are formidable. Such high representation offers not only challenges, but also increased political representation and large networks of social support. Complex relationships established through such networks provide Mexican migrants with avenues of access to communities, opportunities and services. Following a working definition of community and the concept of social capital, this paper examines health care availability for Mexican migrants in the United States. Because Mexican women are traditionally responsible for the health of their families, a case study is used to illustrate how knowledge and information gained through women's social networks gives Mexican women in the US critical decision‐making power with regard to health care. Greater acknowledgement of women as the brokers of health‐preserving information networks is key to recognising their significance as stakeholders in community health care. Future policy developers should recognise the importance of understanding such specific contextual issues, because they create a health care system that is responsive to individual and community needs.

The purpose of this article is to describe the implementation and results of Finnish activation policy from the viewpoint of integrated services and in the framework of network governance. Special emphasis is given to examining the role of health care as an emergent partner in activation.

The functioning of integrated activation policy is addressed from the perspective of network governance. Network governance refers to an ideal type of governance based on strong strategic partnership and joint action. In Finland the one‐stop model of LAFOS represents a culmination of integrated activation policy. Implementation and results of LAFOS highlight the governance demands of joined‐up service delivery. Health care proposes yet another viewpoint to the development. The analysis is based on the results of two national evaluations.

Network governance has been a good starting point in Finnish activation policy for creating a client‐centered approach and for the co‐ordination of separate resources and services. However, problems with legitimacy and accountability seem hard to overcome in the network context. Elements of different types of governance are mixed in activation policy while network governance remains in transition. In Finland, health care has been an essential party to activation, and its role is getting stronger. The challenge is to incorporate health and work ability into a wider concept of employability and capability in society.

The article presents an analysis of the unique model of joint services in activation, LAFOS, and its governance. It also contributes to the discussion of the role of health care in activation and integrated activation policy.

The purpose of this paper is to address a critical problem for health-care organizations: patient referral leakage. This paper explores the nature of patient referrals by examining how health-care providers’ breadth and depth of connectivity within a hospital network and identification with each other influence the likelihood of future patient referrals.

The data was collected by using a multi-sourced data set from the health-care industry. The proposed model was tested by using logistic regression to determine the likelihood of a primary care physician’s (PCP) referral to a specialist within a hospital network.

A model linking provider connectivity to examine co-creation practices in the form of patient referrals is tested. Results indicate that patient referrals are multidimensional. A PCP’s likelihood to refer to a specialist within the hospital network is influenced by the breadth and depth of connectivity of each provider.

This investigation extends service ecosystems to patients, health-care providers and hospital organizations, making it the first to explore how different degrees of connectivity (breadth of referral partners and depth of exchange) between and among health-care providers influence the likelihood of future patient referrals. Findings complement extant literature on service ecosystems by empirically showing that provider relationships are interdependent and rely on the mutual coordination of benefits within the entire health-care organization and network.

Managers and health-care professionals can use the framework to build and strengthen relational ties/alliances within a service organization. An ecosystems perspective reduces patient referral leakage through enhanced organizational performance, competitive advantage and continuity of care.

The authors offer a novel view of referral relationships using hard-to-access proprietary data. Moreover, this study responds to the need for transformative service research by offering service researchers and policymakers a means to enhance consumer well-being. The main contribution of this study is a framework to gain a better understanding of patient referral relationships between employees (i.e., health-care providers) in an organization, thereby affording an opportunity to bolster operational efficiencies, improve clinical outcomes and strengthen referral pathways. By viewing health-care networks through a service ecosystems perspective, contextual boundaries and the relative power of relationships are also identified. The novel use of rarely available hospital data in this setting helps explain how patient leakage compromises the health of the ecosystem and its members.

The purpose of this paper is to synthesize existing evidence regarding health care team networks, including their formation and association with outcomes in various health care settings.

Network theory informed this review. A literature search was conducted in major databases for studies that used social network analysis methods to study health care teams in the USA between 2000 and 2014. Retrieved studies were reviewed against inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Overall, 25 studies were included in this review. Results demonstrated that health care team members form professional (e.g. consultation) and personal (e.g. friendship) networks. Network formation can be influenced by team member characteristics (i.e. demographics and professional affiliations) as well as by contextual factors (i.e. providers sharing patient populations and physical proximity to colleagues). These networks can affect team member practice such as adoption of a new medication. Network structures can also impact patient and organizational outcomes, including occurrence of adverse events and deficiencies in health care delivery.

Administrators and policy makers can use knowledge of health care networks to leverage relational structures in teams and tailor interventions that facilitate information exchange, promote collaboration, increase diffusion of evidence-based practices, and potentially improve individual and team performance as well as patient care and outcomes.

Most health services research studies have investigated health care team composition and functioning using traditional social science methodologies, which fail to capture relational structures within teams. Thus, this review is original in terms of focusing on dynamic relationships among team members.

The South West Health Ethics Network (SWHEN) was created to bring together health care providers from a variety of health care settings across a geographical region. SWHEN’s mission was to connect health professionals who have an interest in ethical issues. SWHEN’s target participants are people with an interest in this field regardless of the individual’s capacity within an ethics profession. While other ethics networks exist, few of these expand beyond a narrow scope of ethics professionals (clinical ethicists). The preliminary vision in bringing together this group was to create a regional collaborative to educate, share lessons and begin to create a common approach to ethics issues in our region. Ethics networks increase collaboration and the exchange of resources, information and ideas among clinical ethicists. As a result, they address many of the ethical dilemmas faced in integrated care and facilitate the success of these systems in providing coordinated patient care. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

A Delphi consensus building approach was conducted to determine goals and priorities of the network.

Several priorities and counter priorities were discussed. In the end, the network was stifled by three major challenges: resource sharing, balance of network priorities and individual needs, and leadership.

While the journey to creating a sustainable network is long and complex, it is still worth the struggles. Network members remained connected through e-platforms, and the meetings have increased our region’s cohesiveness around ethics. We remain cautiously optimistic of SWHENs future and acknowledge that our initial plan may have shifted but our achievements are still meaningful and worthwhile.

Legitimizing health-care networks over time is crucial to the survival of the networks, but studies providing insight into the motivational paradigms used to legitimize networks and mergers are missing. This study aims to contribute by analyzing which motivational paradigms, namely, transaction costs economics, resource dependency, stakeholder theory, organizational learning and institutional theory, are used over time to motivate the formation, integration and eventually merger of a health-care network.

The theoretical paradigms from the literature are matched with the motivational arguments that were found in the communication around the formation and evolution of a specific health-care network. Secondary data in the printed press were analyzed in three ways to obtain triangulation in method.

Five theoretical paradigms matched the communication during significant parts of the time-scope of the study, but not always equally strong. It, therefore, confirms the usefulness of an integrated and evolutionary perspective on the paradigms, not only during the formation but also during the life-span of the organization.

Insight into the motivational paradigms that dominate in the press during an integration and merger process allows for health-care managers and policy makers to manage the process of legitimizing. This might prevent network failure because of lack of legitimacy, misperceptions of the motivations, overemphasizing one motivation or inability to move to a next layer of motivation when the integration process evolves.

This paper aims to investigate the dyadic relationships of actors engaged in public–private (P-P) collaboration in health-care prevention. The purpose is to characterize a new type of actor as an intermediary that connects different actors in P-P collaboration and to compare P-P collaboration based on results expected with and without the inclusion of this new actor.

For the investigation, the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing Group approach to business relationships is used. The substance (activities-resources-actors) and the functions (dyadic, single actor and network) of business relationships are applied as a research framework. The analysis is based on these theories through a case study.

This study delivers four important findings: the relationship with this new type of actor results in new resources for all of the participants that are involved, the new actor is a key channel for generating corporate social responsibility recommendations for private actors, relationships with this new type of actor are a great basis on which private firms may build relationships with the public that involve higher levels of health care and also generate sponsorship for public causes, thereby increasing social welfare and the new type of actor can cause potential tensions that require constant and coordinated management.

The paper contributes to the conceptualization of the “interacted actor” through characterizing a new type of actor and its renewing network in P-P collaboration.

The introduction of regulated competition in health care in several Western countries confronts health care providing organizations with changing relationships, with their environment and a need for knowledge and skills to analyse and improve their market position. Marketing receives more and more attention, as recent developments in this field of study provide a specific perspective on the relationships between an organization and external and internal parties. In doing so, a basis is offered for network management. A problem is that the existing marketing literature is not entirely appropriate for the specific characteristics of health care. After a description of the developments in marketing and its most recent key concepts, the applicability of these concepts in health‐care organizations is discussed. States that for the health‐care sector, dominated by complex networks of interorganizational relationships, the strategic marketing vision on relationships can be very useful. At the same time however, the operationalization of these concepts requires special attention and a distinct role of the management of health‐care organizations, because of the characteristics of such organizations and the specific type of their service delivery.

Managed care networks enable virtual integration of health, social care and housing service delivery. When focused on outcomes and experience for service users and carers, they can provide integrated support for improvement in the pathways, processes and experience of care and support for older people. This paper provides a case study of the development of a managed care network of health and social care partners in Lanarkshire in the context of current policy drivers in Scotland.

The diversity of the health care sector makes it difficult to come up with managerially useful generalizations concerning marketing practice in health care organizations. Develops specific categories of health care offerings and proposes a two‐by‐two matrix for classifying health care offerings based on customer participation and complexity of the health care offering. In each quadrant, offers strategic marketing insights into how the nature of the health care offering might affect the marketing task. Uses network theory as the guiding framework in constructing the health care classification schema.