Hospital innovativeness and organizational performance: evidence from English public acute care.
BACKGROUND
Hospitals around the world dedicate increasing attention and resources to innovation. However, surprisingly little is known about the nature of hospital innovativeness and its relationship with organizational performance. Given both the specific characteristics of the hospital sector and the rather mixed evidence from other industries, a positive innovation-performance link should not be taken for granted but requires empirical examination.


OBJECTIVE
The purposes of this study were to introduce a perspective of hospitals as vital generators of innovation, to unpack the concept of innovativeness, to propose a measurement model for hospital innovativeness, and to empirically investigate the innovativeness-performance relationship.


METHODS
We conducted a large-scale empirical study among the entire population of public hospital organizations that are part of the English National Health Service (n = 173) and analyzed the data using exploratory factor and regression analyses.


RESULTS
Our analyses suggest a significant positive relationship between science- and practice-based innovativeness and clinical performance but provide less unambiguous support for the existence of such a relationship between innovativeness and administrative performance. In particular, we find that higher levels of innovativeness are rather associated with superior quality of care than with measurable bottom-line financial benefits.


CONCLUSIONS
Hospitals investing in innovation-generating activities might find their efforts well rewarded in terms of tangible clinical performance improvements. However, to achieve measurable financial benefits, numerous hospitals have yet to discover and capture the commercial value of some of their innovations-a challenging task that requires a holistic innovation management and an effective network of complementary partners.
Salge
Torsten Oliver
TO
Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom. oliver.salge@gmx.de
Vera
Antonio
A
D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000191:economics; D054869:Clinical Audit; D003405:Creativity; D003953:Diagnosis-Related Groups / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D004739:England; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D006302:Health Services Research / Q000191:economics; D017052:Hospital Mortality; D006779:Hospitals, Public / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards; D006801:Humans; D007449:Investments; D008330:Management Audit; D019300:Medical Errors / Q000517:prevention & control; D015279:Organizational Culture; D009936:Organizational Innovation; D017060:Patient Satisfaction / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D019984:Quality Indicators, Health Care; D012044:Regression Analysis; D013222:State Medicine / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards; D017749:Total Quality Management / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data