Profit vs. public welfare goals in investor-owned and not-for-profit hospitals.
A study of goal formation in a matched sample of investor-owned and not-for-profit hospitals was conducted to determine differences in the perceptions of employees regarding their hospitals' commitments to patient/community welfare goals versus profit maximization. These perceptions were compared to available operating data for the same hospitals. While the investor-owned hospitals as a group generally were found to emphasize patient/community welfare values less than their not-for-profit counterparts, this did not hold true when matched pairs were analyzed. In some of the matched subsets, the not-for-profit hospitals were much more profit-oriented than the investor-owned hospitals. This research reveals that strong patient/community service values do not universally characterize not-for-profit hospitals, and conversely investor-owned hospitals cannot always be characterized as profit maximizers.
D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003625:Data Collection; D006040:Goals; D006739:Hospital Administration; D006777:Hospitals, Proprietary / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006788:Hospitals, Voluntary / Q000458:organization & administration*; D009934:Organization and Administration; D009937:Organizational Objectives; D012945:Social Values; D014481:United States