Effects of innovation leadership and supply chain innovation on supply chain efficiency: Focusing on hospital size

This study examines the effects of innovation leadership and supply chain (SC) innovation on SC efficiency in the healthcare organization. Specifically, this study attempts to investigate the moderating effect of hospital size (more than 500 and <500 beds) on the relationships. The data used in this study were collected from relatively large hospitals with more than 100 beds. The structural equation modeling (SEM) technique with AMOS 17.0 was used to test hypotheses in the research model. The results show that innovation leadership positively affects SC innovation which in turn increases SC efficiency. For hospitals with more than 500 beds the results confirm the effect of innovation leadership on SC innovation and a positive relationship between SC innovation and SC efficiency. On the other hand, hospitals with <500 beds hospital size is not moderated between information technology and SC efficiency, but other relationships are supported in the research model showing hospital size moderates the relationships between innovation leadership, SC innovation, and SC efficiency. The study demonstrates SC innovation plays a key role in improving operational processes for SC efficiency and contributes to the practice of healthcare management and theoretically to efficiency through innovation in supply chain management for the healthcare industry. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.