Inter-organizational Culture Research Articles

Like Heads of a Hydra: Emergence and Maintenance of Inter-Organizational Culture

Like Heads of a Hydra: Emergence and Maintenance of Inter-Organizational Culture

Healthy@Home, An Integrated Health and Social Care Program for a Marginalized Population Group in Toronto, Canada

Introduction: Integrated health and social care (IHSC) can support improved health and social care outcomes for highly vulnerable and marginalized population groups. Toronto has one of the most diverse populations in the world. Immigrants account for 46% of the city's population. Russian-speaking Jewish older adults are a population group who are at significant risk of isolation and poor access to health and social services. In response an adult day program, Healthy@Home (H@H) was established through multi-organizational partnership among community-based health and social care outcomes led by social services agencies has spread to 20 sites across Canada.
 Methodology: a qualitative study of H@H was undertaken to explore the factors that support successful integrated services delivery for this high-risk population group. Key informant interviews and focus groups were completed involving eight health and social care agencies to explore the factors that support successful IHSC. 
 Results: The qualitative study identified eleven critical factors that support IHSC among many health and social care agencies. They include strong communications, shared vision and goals, team-based care, dedicated resources, inter-organizational culture, and pre-existing relationships were overwhelmingly regarded as being key to the success of H@H partnerships. Leadership and accountability agreements were also regarded as being important factors. The H@H case also identified pre-existing relationships, role clarity and champions that contributed towards its integration success. The H@H case offers up some unique insights into how context can have an important role in influencing IHSC and that may be unique to services provision in Toronto. Ten contextual factors were identified as having exerted an influence on services partnership. They include aging population, immigration population, transportation, differences in the healthcare and social care sectors, accountability agreements with governing authorities and funders, public funding, governance authorities, sense of community among the providers, public policies and being part of the not-for-profit sector.
 Lessons Learned: The H@H study has shown that IHSC can occur voluntarily and at the grass-roots level. It also provides insights into how IHSC can be initiated and driven by social services agencies who are united by a shared vision and goal, and a strong sense of community. Despite limited funding and external resources, these organizational partners have been able to engage in IHSC for more than a decade in order to respond to a significant unmet need for a population group that was being ignored and marginalized due to their socio-economic status, their immigration status, and language barriers by existing health and welfare systems. Their isolation from mainstream society put them at significant risk of falling through the Canadian welfare system cracks. These community-based agencies, with close ties to their neighbourhoods were able to engage, respond, coordinate, and integrate flexibly. Contextual factors including a supportive policy environment that was aimed at supporting ageing in place, seniors care, poverty reduction and immigrants and a vibrant community of culturally competent providers has made H@H a success.

Case study of an integrated health and social care initiative for geriatric patients in rural Alberta

PurposeRural regions in Canada are aging faster than urban centers, but access to health and social care is limited. Integrated health and social care (IHSC) through collaboration across different health and social care organizations can support enhanced care for older adults living in rural regions. However, IHSC is not well understood within a rural Canadian context.Design/methodology/approachA case study of a Canadian IHSC initiative, Geriatric Assessment Program Collaboratory (GAPC), in northern Alberta was undertaken to understand how successful IHSC can occur in an urban/rural region. The study used key informant interviews and a focus group of representatives from the GAPC organizations.FindingsNine factors were identified that support GAPC: communications, information sharing, shared vision and goals, inter-organizational culture, diffused leadership, team-based approaches, dedicated resources, role clarity, champions and pre-existing relationships. Eight external influence factors were identified as influencing partnership including geography, strong sense of community, inter-sectoral work, public policy, governance authorities and structures, funding models, aging communities and operating within a not-for-profit (NFP) setting.Originality/valueThe study reveals insights into how IHSC can occur within a rural Canadian context. This study demonstrates that IHSC occurs at the local level and that primary care providers can drive IHSC successfully.

Organizational culture and relationship marketing: an interorganizational perspective

Purpose – This paper aimed to analyze the contribution of interorganizational relationships, specifically between suppliers and clients, to organizational cultural changes. Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative multiple case study in two marketing channels was performed, through in-depth interviews, observation and data analysis based on grounded theory. Findings – The contribution of trust, commitment, cooperation and learning processes has been identified in the organizational cultural changes and in the reduction of the role conflicts of the boundary spanners. Also, the role of employee turnover to weaken these dimensions and respective relations has been noticed. Originality/value – The development of an interorganizational culture has been evidenced, as a system of symbols and meanings shared by groups or individuals from different organizations, on a transitional basis, with the predominance of the cultural perspective of fragmentation. It is a culture originated from relationships through intersections of cultures, a culture of boundaries.

Identifying and Prioritizing Factors Influencing Success of a Strategic Planning Process: A Study on National Iranian Copper Industries Company

<p>Nowadays, global economic activities are performed by medium and small-sized enterprises (SMEs). All these organizations seek success, knock the socks off rival companies and satisfy their customers' needs in a turbulent environment and a very competitive market. Strategic planning, in case of proper formulation and implementation, is an effective tool which can identify opportunities, threats, strengths and weaknesses of the organization so that more realistic goals can be set and implemented. National Iranian Copper Industries Company needs to prioritize its strategies due to structural evolutions in order to determine the budget and formulate short-term planning for them. So the present research examines and ranks these factors. Our research method is descriptive-survey and the sampling process is random. Population size is 180 and the sample size of 120 is calculated according to Cochran formula. This research categorized the factors using factor analysis. The results showed that success factors of Strategic Planning for this company were situated in four groups including administrative process, managerial process, inter-organizational culture and extra-organizational factors. Then the indicators were weighted and prioritized by means of Shannon's method and Topsis technique, respectively. Finally conclusions were provided according to the given priorities.</p>

Effect on Collaborative 3Cs by Inter-organizational Culture and Leader-Member Exchange Relationships - Focused on the Moderating Effect of Trust in Supervisors -

Effect on Collaborative 3Cs by Inter-organizational Culture and Leader-Member Exchange Relationships - Focused on the Moderating Effect of Trust in Supervisors -

Inter-organizational culture, trust, knowledge sharing, collaboration and performance in supply chain of maritime industries: Examining the linkages

Faced with market environment of high-level changes, the maritime industry is required to generate high sensitivity to external dynamics while developing own abilities in response to market demand to achieve performance excellence for businesses. The study consolidated relevant literature and suggested that: “the integration of supply chain refers to an efficient and effective operation of industry related activities, relying on the background of similar organizational culture, whereas the shared values and beliefs among partners formed through similar organizational culture are likely to produce mutual trust, information and knowledge sharing, and achieve goal of organizational performance through logistics collaboration.” Hence, the main purpose of the research aims to discuss the linkage between inter-organizational culture, trust, knowledge sharing, collaboration, and performance in supply chain of maritime industries. The questionnaires are mailed to different firms of maritime industries. This article uses exploratory factor analysis, reliability and validity analysis for collecting data. By using structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis, the results show that: 1) organizational culture has positive effect to trust and knowledge sharing; 2) trust has positive effect to knowledge sharing and collaboration; 3) knowledge sharing has positive effect to collaboration; and 4) collaboration has positive effect to performance. The major contribution of this article is linking different maritime industries and research dimensions to provide empirical results in supply chain of maritime integration. Key words: Organizational culture, trust, knowledge sharing, collaboration, performance.

Changing Interorganizational Culture: A Case Study of Trust and Power in an Interorganizational Network

Changing Interorganizational Culture: A Case Study of Trust and Power in an Interorganizational Network

The Exxon Valdez disaster: environmental safety implementation in an incrementalist mode

This article develops a view on environmental risk as produced by some of the dynamics of human organization, i.e. political and economic as well as communicative factors acting together to create a failure-prone context. The empirical focus is the implementation of environmental safety that grew out of many years of inter-organizational interaction between the oil industry and regulatory agencies in Alaska, and which was highlighted by the notorious Exxon Valdez oil-spill in 1989. In the article it is argued that failure to prepare for (or to avoid) a catastrophe of this kind represents a safety implementation failure, and that such a failure usually encompasses systemic causes stretching far beyond the immediate context of the actual occurrence of the event. The study sets out to show how, in the Exxon Valdez case, the failure of an inter-organizational culture to implement basic safety measures resulted from an incremental but systematic decrease in regulatory control, the emergence of counterproductive bargaining between corporate bodies, conflict-oriented policy-making with respect to oil-spill hazards and a misjudgement of the potential outcomes of an oil spill.