Search results

Stakeholder management is not yet incorporated into the standard practice of most healthcare providers. The purpose of this paper is to assess the applicability of a comprehensive model for stakeholder management in mental healthcare organization for more evidence-based (stakeholder) management.

The assessment was performed in two research parts: the steps described in the model were executed in a single case study at a mental healthcare organization in the Netherlands; and a process and effect evaluation was done to find the supporting and impeding factors with regard to the applicability of the model. Interviews were held with managers and directors to evaluate the effectiveness of the model with a view to stakeholder management.

The stakeholder analysis resulted in the identification of eight stakeholder groups. Different expectations were identified for each of these groups. The analysis on performance gaps revealed that stakeholders generally find the collaboration with a mental healthcare provider “sufficient.” Finally a prioritization showed that five stakeholder groups were seen as “definite” stakeholders by the organization.

The assessment of the model showed that it generated useful knowledge for more evidence-based (stakeholder) management. Adaptation of the model is needed to increase its feasibility in practice.

Provided that the model is properly adapted for the specific field, the analysis can provide more knowledge on stakeholders and can help integrate stakeholder management as a comprehensive process in policy planning.

Flexibility is essential for healthcare organizations to anticipate the increasing internal and external dynamics. Mental healthcare organizations in the Netherlands face major policy reforms made by the government, increasing involvement from municipalities and gradual replacement of clinical care with outpatient care. Top management plays an important strategic role in creating this flexibility because they make important choices, give direction and structure the organization. To create flexibility, managers have to deal with complexity and paradoxes. In this study, the authors aim to contribute to the knowledge on how healthcare managers can create flexibility in their organizations.

This is a qualitative empirical field study. In total, 21 managers of mental healthcare organizations participated in open in-depth interviews. The authors explored flexibility on three perspectives: organizational direction, structure and operations. The COVID-19 pandemic has provided an opportunity to explore flexibility. The authors asked participants to reflect on their organization's response to the pandemic.

Most mental healthcare organizations create flexibility in an implicit way. Flexibility and resilience are closely linked mechanisms. Flexibility ensures a quick response while resilience provides the counterforce and rebound needed to adapt. Adaption ensures that healthcare professionals learn from their experiences and do not return completely to the way things were done before. The primary urge to survive ensured rapid and adequate responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Whether this is a manifestation of flexibility remains difficult to conclude.

The complexity theory offers some guidance in creating a flexible organization without losing consistency. Flexibility and resilience are closely linked mechanisms that antagonize and protect each other. With this insight, managers in mental healthcare can utilize the qualities and balance them without falling into the various pitfalls.

In this research, the authors are concerned with flexibility as a proactive attitude and capacity of organizations. By looking at the response of organizations to the COVID-19 crisis, the authors find out that responding to a disaster out of survival instinct is something else than flexibility. There is an interesting relationship between flexibility, resilience and adaptability, and they can balance each other.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate aspects of organizational culture among the nursing staff of public mental health services organizations in Cyprus. Specifically, highlights are provided of possible differences on the attitudes of nurses regarding actual and desired aspects of organizational culture with respect to demographic characteristics such as gender, years of service and experience.

A descriptive explanatory type survey study was conducted in all public mental health services organizations of Cyprus. Specifically, a questionnaire was given to a representative sample of the nursing population, and data were collected and analyzed. The survey questionnaire was based on the organizational culture profile (OCP) methodology. Statistical analysis was carried out using correlational analysis, t-tests and analysis of variance (ANOVA).

Results showed that there are significant discrepancies between the actual organizational culture and what is desired by staff members of public mental health services organizations in Cyprus. Further, significant differences are identified between actual and desired organizational culture moderated by the type of work, which is determined by the workplace.

Even though, organizational culture is a major research topic little has been done in the context of public mental healthcare organizations. Further, for the case of Cyprus, it is the first time that such a study is carried out. The results presented in this paper may provide the foundation for measures to be taken for improving the existing operation of public mental healthcare organizations.

Regulation is increasingly being used in healthcare to influence the behaviour of healthcare organisations. Since 2006, a key change in Ireland has been the introduction of national regulatory standards in mental health services under new legislation. Little empirical evidence, however, exists on the effects of regulation. The purpose of this paper is to examine the perceived impact of standards at patient level as well as on professional and organisational practice in services.

An anonymous online survey methodology using a self-devised questionnaire instrument was employed. A national cohort of service managers and multi-disciplinary mental health professionals were asked their views on the introduction of standards.

A total of 185 individuals responded to the survey, yielding a response rate of 38 per cent. Substantial improvements were reported to have taken place across services with the most notable changes being improved safeguarding of patients’ rights and increased safety of care. Additionally, major changes were reported in professional working with new topics being discussed at management meetings and new functions being incorporated into certain professionals’ roles.

Standards can change behaviour at several levels across healthcare organisations, although professional groups differ in their views on the degree of this impact.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first evaluation of the impact of national regulatory standards in healthcare in Ireland. This study lends support to the use of standards to enhance patient rights and the safety of services. The results provide useful direction for policy makers, regulators, and service providers.

The mental healthcare is experiencing an ever-growing surge in understanding the consumer (e.g., patient) engagement paradox, aiming to vouch for the quality of care. Despite this surge, scant attention has been given in academia to conceptualize and empirically investigate this particular aspect. Thus, drawing on the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) paradigm, the study explores how patients engage with healthcare service providers and how they perceive the quality of the healthcare services.

Data were collected from 279 respondents, and the derived conceptual model was tested by using Smart PLS 3.2.7 and PROCESS. To complement the findings of partial least squares (PLS)-based structural equation modeling (SEM), the present study also applied fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to identify the necessary and sufficient conditions to explore substitute conjunctive paths that emerge.

Findings show that patients’ perceived intimacy (PI), cohesion and privacy enhance the quality of mental healthcare service providers. The results also suggest that patients’ PI, cohesion and privacy have indirect effects on the perceived quality of care (PQC) by the service providers through consumer engagement. The fsQCA results derive that the relationship among conditions leading to patients’ perception of the quality of care in regard to mental healthcare service providers is complex and is best reflected as multiple and conjectural causation configurations.

The findings from this research contribute to the advancement of studies on patients’ experiences by empirically examining the unique dynamics of interaction between consumers (patients) and mental healthcare service providers, thereby enriching both the literature on social interactions and the understanding of the consumer–provider relationship.

The results of this study provide practical implications for mental healthcare service providers on how to combine the study variables to enhance the quality of care and satisfy more patients.

A significant research gap has ascertained the inter-relationship between PI, cohesion, privacy, engagement and PQC from the perspective of mental healthcare service providers. This research is one of the primary studies from a managerial and methodological standpoint. The study contributes by combining symmetric and asymmetric statistical tools in service marketing and healthcare research. Furthermore, the application of fsQCA helps to understand the interactions that might not be immediately obvious through traditional symmetric methods.

The prevention of mental health issues at work represents a significant challenge for organizations. The transformation of workplaces whose future promises to be virtual or hybrid can make the anticipation and prevention of these health issues more challenging, considering the potential distance that it may create between employees and their employers. The recent health crisis undermined individual mental health but also highlighted the importance of new technologies which greatly paved the way for the future of workplaces. This paper aims to examine these new technologies, specifically the use of blockchain technologies in organizations to predict and prevent mental health issues at work, specifically psychological distress, in times of crisis, and beyond. It addresses the main challenges and opportunities and presents research avenues as well as insights for human resource management (HRM) practitioners.

This paper is a viewpoint that addresses the use of blockchain technology in the prevention of employees’ mental health at work in times of crisis and beyond. Literature was used to support this viewpoint and highlight the importance of addressing mental health issues at work and preventing their occurrence in the future.

Blockchain is one of the disruptive new technologies that can be used as a strategic tool for organizations to prevent mental health issues among employees in the workplace in times of crisis, and beyond. It facilitates the collaboration between employees, their organization, healthcare and employee assistance program (EPA) providers, as well as insurance companies. In this context, a specific type of blockchain should be used to support this type of collaboration.

Blockchain can generate both opportunities and challenges for the prevention of mental issues at work. It can transform the future of workplaces and help organizations as well as healthcare and EPA providers to anticipate potential employees’ mental health issues in 2019. Organizations need to address their readiness to implement this new technology and the possible reluctance of their employees to use it. This paper presents insights for managers and HRM practitioners.

The studies that have addressed the use of blockchain in organizations to prevent employees’ mental health issues are sparse. This paper is an attempt to address this gap and examine the challenges as well as the opportunities associated with the use of this disruptive new technology that can significantly reshape the future of workplaces.

Maintaining a healthy and productive workforce is a challenge for most organizations. This is even truer for health organization, facing staff shortages and work overload. The aim of this study is to identify the resources and constraints that influence managers' mental health and better understand how they are affected by them.

A qualitative approach was chosen to document the resources, the constraints as well as their consequences on managers in their day-to-day realities. The sample included executive-, intermediate- and first-level managers from a Canadian healthcare facility. A total of 62 semi-structured interviews were conducted. The coding process was based on the IGLOO model of Nielsen et al. (2018) to which an employee-related level was added (IGELOO).

Results highlight the importance of considering both resources as well as constraints in examining managers' mental health. Overarching context, organizational constraints and the management of difficult employees played important roles in the stress experienced by managers.

The results offer a better understanding of the importance of intervening at different levels to promote better organizational health. Results also highlight the importance of setting up organizational resources and act on the various constraints to reduce them. Different individual strategies used by managers to deal with the various constraints and maintain their mental health also emerge from those results.

In addition to addressing the reality of healthcare managers, this study supplements a theoretical model and suggests avenues for interventions promoting more sustainable organizational health.

This two-part study aims to contribute to the body of knowledge on team development by examining the development of self-managing teams (SMTs) in healthcare. Based on an exploration of the team development literature, a perspective on SMT development was created, which suggested that SMTs develop along a non-sequential pattern of three processes–team management, task management and boundary management and improvement–that is largely the result of individual, team, organizational and environmental-level factors.

The perspective on SMT development was assessed in a Dutch mental healthcare organization by conducting 13 observations of primary mental healthcare SMTs as well as 14 retrospective interviews with the self-management process facilitator and advisors of all 100 primary mental healthcare SMTs.

Empirical results supported the perspective on SMT development. SMTs were found to develop along each of the three defined processes in a variety or possible patterns or simultaneously over time, depending on many of the identified factors and three others. These factors included individual human capital, team member attitudes and perceived workload at the individual level, psychological safety, team turnover, team size, nature of the task and bureaucratic history at the team level, and management style and material and social support at the organizational level.

This study provides a non-sequential model of SMT development in healthcare, which healthcare providers could use to understand and foster SMTs development. To foster SMT development, it is suggested that cultural change need to be secured alongside with structural change.

Even though various team development models have been described in the literature, this study is the first to indicate how SMTs in the healthcare context develop toward effective functioning.