The Impact of Knowledge Creation Process on Organizational Innovation in Mashhad Hospitals: The Mediating Role of Organizational Learning

Background: Delivering healthcare to patients is a very complex endeavor that is highly dependent on information. Healthcare organizations need to gather and analyze data and transform it into information and knowledge to make useful decisions. Furthermore, the hospital is one of the most interactive working environments and includes interaction between nurses and patients, nurses and doctors, and doctors and patients. All these interactions can lead to human learning and experimentation. Knowledge management and organizational learning play an important role in organizational innovation, so that innovation based on knowledge and organizational learning is evident. This study was performed to investigate the effect of knowledge creation process on organizational innovation in Mashhad hospitals by the mediating role of organizational learning.
Methods: In this cross-sectional descriptive analytical study in 2016, the data gathering method was library-fieldwork. Statistical population of this study was the staff of five Mashhad hospitals (two public hospitals and three private hospitals) which include practitioners and nurses in various sections of hospitals. To determine the sample in this study, the stratified random sampling was used and the sample size based on Cochran's formula was 113. Data analysis was performed with Smart PLS and for statistical analysis, structural equation modeling and T-value test were used.
Results: 50.4% of respondents were men. In terms of education, most participants (57 people) had graduate level. Most people (42.5%) had more than 15 year work experience. The results indicated that knowledge creation process had a structural and significant positive impact on organizational innovation at 95% confidence level (0.361) and an indirect impact on organizational innovation through organizational learning capability at 99% confidence level (0.399). Furthermore, that knowledge creation process had a structural and significant positive effect on organizational learning at 99% confidence level (0.732) and organizational learning had a structural and significant positive impact on organizational innovation at 99% confidence level (0.546).
Conclusion: Regarding to the research results, it is expected that organizations can develop the innovation and knowledge creation process by the help of the development of social networks, work teams and knowledge creation process.