Combining Communication Technology Utilization and Organizational Innovation: Evidence from Canadian Healthcare Decision Makers

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Organizational Innovation (OI) are seen as the miracle of post-modernity in organizations. In this way, they are supposed to resolve most organizational problems, efficiently and rapidly. OI is highly dependent on the capacity and the investment in knowledge management (internal and external) to support decision making process and to implement significant changes. We know what explains ICT utilization (ICTU) and what determines OI development (OID) in healthcare services. Moreover, the literature tends to link ICTU to OID and vice versa. However, this dependency has never been explored empirically through the lens of roles combination. To identify the existing combined roles profiles of ICTU and OID among healthcare decision makers and determine factors of the shift from a profile to another. We did the following: (1) a structured review of the literature on healthcare management by focusing on ICTU and OID which allowed us to build two indexes and a comprehensive framework; (2) a copula methodology to identify with high precision the thresholds for ICTU and OID; and (3) a cross-sectional study based on a survey done with a sample of 942 decision makers from Canadian healthcare organizations through a multinomial logit model to identify determinants of the shift. ICTU and OID are correlated at 22% (Kendal’s Tau). The joint distribution (combination) of ICTU and OID shows that four major profiles exist among decision makers in Canadian healthcare organizations: the traditional decision maker, the innovative decision maker, the technologic decision maker and the contemporary decision maker. We found out that classic factors act as barriers to the shift from one profile to the desired profile (from 1 to 4, from 2 to 4 and from 3 to 4). We have identified that the attitude toward research and relational capital are transversal barriers of shift. We have also found that some factors have a specific impact such as engaging in activities of research acquisition, the administrative position (being a manager), the preference for applied research results as source of information, the degree of novelty of research results, and the gender. Modern Canadian healthcare organizations need contemporary decision makers who use ICT and develop OI, if performance is the target. Our results let us suggest that the isolated administrative agents profile is no more effective in a dynamic and changing world. Contemporary decision makers need to be more active intellectually and to take risks in their decisions. Relying exclusively on research results and on their social network is no more helpful for a real shift. Moreover, the traditional factors, i.e. organization size, time, experience…are no more effective, especially when we consider combined roles. We propose some practical and theoretical recommendations to support these changes.

[1]  Lynne J. Millward,et al.  Role Expectations as Constraints to Innovation: The Case of Female Managers , 2002 .

[2]  Agnetha Broos,et al.  Gender and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Anxiety: Male Self-Assurance and Female Hesitation , 2005, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[3]  K. Umble,et al.  Management academy for public health: creating entrepreneurial managers. , 2007, American journal of public health.

[4]  M. Sklar Fonctions de repartition a n dimensions et leurs marges , 1959 .

[5]  R. Nelsen An Introduction to Copulas (Springer Series in Statistics) , 2006 .

[6]  E. Tangalos,et al.  "A Telemedicine Primer: Understanding the Issues" , 1996 .

[7]  R. Wolfe ORGANIZATIONAL INNOVATION: REVIEW, CRITIQUE AND SUGGESTED RESEARCH DIRECTIONS* , 1994 .

[8]  R. Atun,et al.  Diffusion of complex health innovations--implementation of primary health care reforms in Bosnia and Herzegovina. , 2006, Health policy and planning.

[9]  Jalila Jbilou,et al.  Research-Based-Decision-Making in Canadian Health Organizations: A Behavioural Approach , 2007, Journal of Medical Systems.

[10]  C. Klaassen,et al.  Copulas in QTL Mapping , 2004, Behavior genetics.

[11]  S. Fenton,et al.  Evaluation and management documentation and coding technology adoption. , 2007, Perspectives in health information management.

[12]  L. Fitzgerald,et al.  New workforce roles in health care: exploring the longer-term journey of organisational innovations. , 2007, Journal of health organization and management.

[13]  Michael R. Solomon,et al.  Regional Health Information Organizations: A Vehicle for Transforming Health Care Delivery? , 2007, Journal of Medical Systems.

[14]  Nancy Lorenzi,et al.  Using Information and Communication Technology in Healthcare , 2002, Annals of Internal Medicine.

[15]  Eric G Poon,et al.  Nurses' Satisfaction With Medication Administration Point-of-Care Technology , 2007, The Journal of nursing administration.

[16]  Christian Gourieroux,et al.  An efficient nonparametric estimator for models with nonlinear dependence , 2007 .

[17]  Christian D Helfrich,et al.  Determinants of Implementation Effectiveness , 2007, Medical care research and review : MCRR.

[18]  Rifat Atun,et al.  Uptake And Diffusion Of Pharmaceutical Innovations In Health Systems , 2007 .

[19]  Morten T. Hansen,et al.  The innovation value chain. , 2007, Harvard business review.

[20]  Ross Upshur,et al.  Evidence-based health policy: context and utilisation. , 2004, Social science & medicine.

[21]  Oscar Tamburis,et al.  The specific role of ICT: different perspectives between traditional healthcare service and e-healthcare service , 2006, Int. J. Electron. Heal..

[22]  E. Rogers,et al.  Diffusion of innovations , 1964, Encyclopedia of Sport Management.

[23]  P. V. Marsden,et al.  The Impact of a Quality Improvement Program on Systems, Processes, and Structures in Medical Clinics , 2007, Medical care.

[24]  R. Nelsen An Introduction to Copulas , 1998 .

[25]  J. Kirigia,et al.  E-health: Determinants, opportunities, challenges and the way forward for countries in the WHO African Region , 2005, BMC public health.

[26]  J. Boonstra,et al.  Technological and organizational innovation: A dilemma of fundamental change and participation. , 1996 .

[27]  Rainu Kaushal,et al.  Health information technology and health information exchange in New York State: New initiatives in implementation and evaluation , 2007, J. Biomed. Informatics.

[28]  David Albury,et al.  Fostering Innovation in Public Services , 2005 .

[29]  Eric K. Neumann,et al.  Knowledge networks in the age of the Semantic Web , 2007, Briefings Bioinform..

[30]  Alfred Li-Ping Cheng ICT industry development strategies and the formation of industrial innovation systems on the two sides of the Taiwan Strait , 2005, Int. J. Technol. Manag..

[31]  C. Weiss The many meanings of research utilization. , 1979 .

[32]  Marguerite Schneider,et al.  Phases of the Adoption of Innovation in Organizations: Effects of Environment, Organization and Top Managers , 2006 .

[33]  Wei-Min Huang,et al.  Isomorphic pressures, institutional strategies, and knowledge creation in the health care sector , 2007, Health care management review.

[34]  Don Stewart,et al.  Executive management and IT innovation in health: identifying the barriers to adoption , 2007, Health Informatics J..

[35]  Faïz Gallouj,et al.  Innovation in hospitals: a survey of the literature , 2007, The European Journal of Health Economics.

[36]  Real Options Reasoning in Healthcare: An Integrative Approach and Synopsis , 2007, Journal of healthcare management / American College of Healthcare Executives.

[37]  Sarv Devaraj,et al.  An empirical comparison of statistical construct validation approaches , 2001, IEEE Trans. Engineering Management.

[38]  I. Iakovidis,et al.  eHealth in Europe: from Vision to Reality. , 2008, Studies in health technology and informatics.

[39]  John Bessant,et al.  Enabling Continuous and Discontinuous Innovation: Learning From the Private Sector , 2005 .

[40]  James Melitski,et al.  E-Government and E-Governance: Converging Constructs of Public Sector Information and Communications Technologies , 2007 .