Exploring Leadership Styles in Nonprofit and For-Profit Acute Care Hospitals
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Authors
Olsen, Julie A.
Issue Date
2020-03
Type
Dissertation
Language
en_US
Keywords
Dissertations, Academic--United States , Hospitals, Proprietary , Hospitals--Administration , Hospitals--Cost of operation , Leadership--Measurement , Leadership , Medical care , Public hospitals , Transformational leadership
Alternative Title
Abstract
The cost of healthcare is rising with the US spending $3.6 trillion, which was 17.7% of the US GDP in 2018 (National Health Expenditure Data, 2019). As a result, healthcare has become a major focus of public administrators, politicians, employers, and the general public. Healthcare administrators are searching for new ways to meet the challenges. One strategy is mergers and acquisitions. From 1975 to 2017, the number of for-profit hospitals grew 70.5%, predominately through the acquisition and transition of nonprofit hospitals to for-profit centers, creating large for-profit healthcare systems. Nonprofit hospitals are also acquiring hospitals and creating large nonprofit systems.
With more acquisitions and mergers, it is important to understand the impact on leadership, however, there have been few studies in this area. With the trend towards leaders transitioning between business sectors, this study sought to determine if there is a difference in the leadership styles between sectors. Healthcare leaders participated in the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire designed to determine a leaders’ propensity towards utilizing transformational, transactional, and passive avoidant behaviors. Additional insight was gained through interviews with 20 healthcare leaders with experience in nonprofit and for-profit hospitals.
The results revealed no significant difference in transformational behaviors between leaders in the nonprofit and for-profit sectors however for-profit leaders had a stronger tendency towards transactional behaviors in the managing by exception active dimension. The size of the organization appeared to impact the tendency towards transactional behavior. The study considered turnover which was found not to correlate to leadership style.
Keywords: leadership; For-profit leadership styles; Nonprofit leadership styles; healthcare leadership; leadership style factors; Transformational leadership;
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This dissertation is protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States (Public Law 94-553, revised in 1976). Consistent with fair use as defined in the Copyright Laws, brief quotations from this material are allowed with proper acknowledgement. Use of the materials for financial gain with the author's expressed written permissions is not allowed.