Monitoring Viability and Sustainability in Healthcare Organizations

Marialuisa Saviano, Clara Bassano, Paolo Piciocchi, Primiano Di Nauta and Mattia Lettieri
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Marialuisa Saviano: Department of Pharmacy and Pharmanomics Interdepartmental Center, University of Salerno, 84084 Salerno, Italy
Clara Bassano: Department of Management Studies and Quantitative Methods, “Parthenope” University of Naples, 80132 Naples, Italy
Paolo Piciocchi: Department of Political, Social and Communication Studies, University of Salerno, 84084 Salerno, Italy
Primiano Di Nauta: Department of Economics, University of Foggia, 71121 Foggia, Italy
Mattia Lettieri: Unipegaso, 80132 Naples, Italy

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 10, 1-23

Abstract: The paper aims to advocate the incorporating of the sustainability perspective into the management control system of healthcare organizations. The study is based on two main premises: (1) the evolution of business models towards a wide perspective of the sustainability approach; (2) the evolution of control systems in healthcare organizations towards a control-based approach to monitor the effectiveness and efficiency of the service targeted primarily to cut costs and expenses. Our methodology is developed at theoretical and conceptual level starting from: (1) a literature review on the issue, highlighting main trends and gaps and (2) the adoption of the Viable Systems Approach (VSA) as a conceptual framework oriented to integrate a wide variety of stakeholder perspectives and interests into the business model. Our findings lead us to introduce the Systems Viability Monitoring Model for Sustainability as a potential reference framework to build healthcare management control systems in which the notion of ‘systems viability,’ as defined by VSA, becomes a bridging concept by means of which the sustainability perspective can be incorporated into the management control system of healthcare organizations.

Keywords: healthcare organizations; control; viability; sustainability; systems monitoring (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:10:p:3548-:d:173531

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