Relationships between leadership and culture, human resources and process improvement in lean healthcare
Business Process Management Journal
ISSN: 1463-7154
Article publication date: 16 January 2023
Issue publication date: 15 March 2023
Abstract
Purpose
This research aims to examine the relationships among leadership and culture, human resources and process improvement in lean hospitals from the socio-technical perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
The survey instrument was developed from literature reviews, verified by experts and confirmatory factor analysis. Multiple responses were used to collect data from 473 care providers in 220 outpatient departments of Thai hospitals to improve reliability of the obtained data. Path analysis of structural equation modeling was applied to analyze the hypotheses.
Findings
It was found that human resources has a significant positive direct effect on process improvement. Leadership and culture not only has significant direct positive impacts on human resources and process improvement but also has a significant indirect positive impact on process improvement through human resources.
Originality/value
This is one of the first examples of research to present insights into the links between soft and hard factors of lean hospitals at strategic and operational levels.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The institutional review board of Mahidol University approved this research (MU-CIRB 2019/064.2202). The author would like to thank the editor and anonymous referees for their constructive reviews; thank experts for their measurement instrument validation; thank Graham K. Rogers for language editing; and thank respondents, Healthcare Accreditation Institute (Public Organization), College of Public Health Administration of the Ministry of Public Health for support in data collection.
Citation
Vanichchinchai, A. (2023), "Relationships between leadership and culture, human resources and process improvement in lean healthcare", Business Process Management Journal, Vol. 29 No. 2, pp. 430-446. https://doi.org/10.1108/BPMJ-07-2022-0328
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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