A Parsonian Approach to Patient Safety: Transformational Leadership and Social Capital as Preconditions for Clinical Risk Management—the GI Factor

Holger Pfaff and Jeffrey Braithwaite
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Holger Pfaff: Institute of Medical Sociology, Health Services Research and Rehabilitation Science (IMVR), Faculty of Human Science and Faculty of Medicine, University of Cologne, Eupener Str. 129, 50933 Cologne, Germany
Jeffrey Braithwaite: Centre for Healthcare Resilience and Implementation Science, Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Macquarie University, 75 Talavera Road, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 11, 1-13

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of the combination of transformational leadership and social capital in safety capacity building. Drawing on the A-G-I-L concept of Talcott Parsons, we test a model for patient safety. The hypothesis is, that good safety management needs a combination of goal attainment (G) and integration (I), here called the GI factor. We tested this hypothesis by using transformational leadership as a surrogate for goal attainment and social capital as a surrogate for integration in a study of the perceptions of chief medical officers in 551 German hospitals. We conducted a cross-sectional hospital survey combined with secondary data analysis in all German hospitals with at least one internal medicine unit and one surgery unit ( N = 1224 hospitals) in the year 2008 with a response rate of 45% ( N = 551). The regression model explained 17.9% of the variance in perceived clinical risk management. We found that if both requirements for goal-oriented collective action—transformational leadership and social capital—are met, good safety management is more likely. The tentative conclusion is that it takes transformative leaders and cohesive followers together as a social basis to improve safety in hospitals.

Keywords: patient safety culture; clinical risk management; transformational leadership; social capital; Parsons; AGIL scheme; hospital; Germany (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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