Situational determinants of the delegation of authority among hospital senior executive officers.
This field study examined the relationship between hospital senior managers' delegation and task importance, the senior managers' trust in their subordinates, and their perception of subordinates' levels of skills. The responses of 32 hospital CEOs or senior executives were compared with the responses of their three most important subordinate managers (for a total of 96 subordinates). Trust scores were uniformly high with little variation, and most of the tasks studied were delegated frequently or occasionally. Although delegation was positively related to the managers' perception of their subordinates' skills, it was not related to the importance of the tasks. These findings confirmed the importance of situational factors in delegation and raised serious questions about senior managers' maximization of the scarce and costly resource that their management staff represent.
Municipal Bond Investors Assurance Corporation, Armonk, NY.
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Saccardi
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Banai
D003625:Data Collection; D003659:Decision Making, Organizational; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D006740:Hospital Administrators / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D011361:Professional Competence / Q000592:standards; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D014481:United States