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How Many Hands Does a Team Have? Developing Ambidextrous Teams in Academic Medical Centers

Seshadri, Sridhar B.

Abstract Details

2010, Doctor of Management, Case Western Reserve University, Weatherhead School of Management.
Despite their research and educational prowess, Academic Medical Centers are in crisis. Public reporting of quality and patient satisfaction data, increasing costs, stiffer competition, and anticipated tightening of budgets have created new levels of urgency among medical school deans and hospital CEOs to increase the effectiveness of the clinical enterprise on multiple fronts. This two-part study models an AMC as a loosely coupled system and examines how interdisciplinary quality improvement teams—comprising administrators, physicians, and nurses—collaborate to make sense of the data presented to them, construct meaning, harmonize seemingly disparate goals, and translate them into sustainable action. The qualitative study employed a set of semi-structured interviews at one U.S. Academic Medical Center as the basis for a grounded theory framework to explain how teams converge toward shared meaning. The quantitative study analyzed data from surveys administered to fifty U.S. Academic Medical Centers to validate a set of hypotheses about how teams develop the ability to use the shared meaning to harmonize competing goals. This work contributes to theory in two ways. First, it suggests that teams interpret data through an iterative process of sensemaking and meaning arbitrage. Second, it offers a novel conceptualization of ambidexterity as a two-stage alignment-to-adaptability process that allows teams to juggle competing goals. From a practitioner perspective, the study encourages sponsors to be wary of charismatic leaders who achieve consensus in a remarkably quick manner. It also offers suggestions to sponsors on how to achieve the delicate balance between stretching and supporting the team to maximize outcomes.
Duncan E. Neuhauser, Ph.D. (Advisor)
Sandy K. Piderit, Ph.D. (Advisor)

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Seshadri, S. B. (2010). How Many Hands Does a Team Have? Developing Ambidextrous Teams in Academic Medical Centers [Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=casedm1568731826883498

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Seshadri, Sridhar. How Many Hands Does a Team Have? Developing Ambidextrous Teams in Academic Medical Centers. 2010. Case Western Reserve University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=casedm1568731826883498.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Seshadri, Sridhar. "How Many Hands Does a Team Have? Developing Ambidextrous Teams in Academic Medical Centers." Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University, 2010. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=casedm1568731826883498

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)