Abstract
Hospital managers and chief physicians, but also doctors and nurses, in an effort to face constant changes, are involved in innovation. This study examines if transformational leadership style is related to adoption of employees’ suggestions, and if personal initiative and job control moderate this relationship. Nurses, doctors, and auxiliary and technical collaborators (n = 137), of an Italian public hospital, participated in this study. Results show that transformational leadership was correlated to innovation adoption but, when examined moderators were included in the analysis, the relation was no more significant. Personal initiative and job control did not moderate the relationship between transformational leadership and innovation adoption but they do have a significant direct effect on innovation adoption. Findings suggest that innovation in hospitals is more related to personal variables, like personal initiative and job control, rather than to transformational leadership.
Highlights
Change is a constant in many organizations, and this applies to health organizations and hospitals
Averages show that transformational leadership behaviours are often showed by the direct supervisor (M = 2.79; SD = 0.47), that respondents moderately agree with items concerning their personal initiative behaviours (M = 4.52; SD = 0.90) and job control (M = 4.11; SD = 0.92) and, that employees’ suggestions are rarely adopted within the organization (M = 2.57; SD = 1.47)
Our results showed a significant correlation between transformational leadership and innovative behaviours and that this relationship is no more significant when personal initiative and job control are introduced as moderating variables
Summary
Change is a constant in many organizations, and this applies to health organizations and hospitals. Hospitals need to continuously innovate medical treatments and services because of the constant technological change (Speziale, 2015), the increasing requests of patients and families, and the frequent decrease of financial resources (Dubois, McKee, & Nott, 2006). Multiple professional figures play a central role in hospitals’ innovation processes and performance. Head of wards or health-care professionals, in their daily management activities, may support or not the innovation (Mumford, Scott, Gaddis, & Strange, 2002). The success of creative and innovative ideas depends very much on the initiative of employees that implement the new ideas and transform them into concrete practices (Fay & Frese, 2001; Martín, Potočnik, & Fras, 2017; Wu, Parker, de Jong, 2014)
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