Addressing the adaptive challenges of leadership and organizational decision making in healthcare settings: A dynamic managerial capabilities perspective

Healthcare systems across the globe are struggling to cope with increasing demand for their services and adapt, as necessary, to the many shifting economic, technological, social, legal, ethical, and political contingencies. This state of affairs is by no means unique to the healthcare sector. Indeed, history is replete with examples of organizations and institutions, across a wide range of sectors, which have faced similar difficulties that they failed to address. Reflecting the scale of this fundamental problem, a considerable body of theory and research in the management and organization sciences has examined the reasons why adapting both strategically and operationally in highly dynamic environments is so difficult to accomplish. Drawing selectively on this body of work, this chapter introduces the notion of dynamic managerial capabilities from the field of strategic management, offers a framework and accompanying process management tools, and sets out a research agenda, with a view to developing fresh insights and practices to equip the leaders and managers of healthcare systems to manage better the varied adaptive challenges confronting them.