Hospital managers’ communication networks: A mixed-method study

Abstract

This study analyzed the problem-solving and advice-seeking networks of hospital managers working in hospitals affiliated to a university of medical sciences in Iran. This was a mixed-method study and was conducted in two stages. Initially, by conducting a qualitative study, key actors related to the hospital’s managers’ problem-solving and information/advice-seeking networks were identified and the next stage was conducted using social network analysis to identify powerful actors in the network. A questionnaire was used to collect data related to network analysis. Network properties were analyzed using density, degree centrality, and betweenness centrality. When hospital managers need help to solve work-related problems, they usually ask the university’s budget experts, followed by the University’s budget manager, the University’s financial manager, and the University’s deputy of management development and resources. In the financial advice-seeking network, the most common target of managers was the University’s financial manager, University’s budget manager, and University’s budget experts. This means that hospital managers usually seek financial advice from these people. Hospital Managers need to have a better understanding of invisible relationships because these relationships improve or may worsen collaboration and enable knowledge sharing in the organization and thus influence the decision-making process of managers.