The Components of Innovative Leadership of Head Nurses in Community Hospitals

Abstract

            The mixed method research aimed to study the components of innovative leadership of head nurses in community hospitals. The sample was 10 persons selected by snowball sampling technique for qualitative study, and it included 423 nurses selected by stratified random sampling. The collected data was 2 stages (First stage, qualitative research data was collected by in-depth interviews and second stage, quantitative research data was collected by questionnaire with rating scale 5 point scale). The quality of the data was checked by using a triangular method and the content validity was determined with the content validity index = 0.96 and the coefficient of Cronbach’s alpha = 0.98. The qualitative data was analyzed by content analysis (Colaizzi’s method) and the quantitative data was analyzed by using descriptive statistic and analyzed the components statistic by using Exploratory Factor Analysis and Confirm Factor Analysis.
            The research findings were the components of innovative leadership with qualitative research had 8 components but the result of Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was 5 components (52 variables) (Eigen value ≥ 1, % of valance cumulative 72.042, the factor loading ≥ .3) and the Confirm Factor Analysis by the test of the congruence of the empirical data with the conceptual framework showed the following results: (Chi-square  = 24.939 df = 319 P-value=1.000 c²/df (CMIN/DF) = 0.078 GFI = .994 AGFI = .993 NFI = .997 CFI = 1.000 RMSEA = .000) with 5 components (27 variables); 1) Innovation vision and strategy (14 variables), 2) decision making for innovation (3 variables), 3) innovation and research utilization (3 variables), 4) innovation team management (3 variables), and 5) managing performance through reward system (4 variables). This research points out that the new explicit knowledge of the components of innovative leadership of head nurses which is consistent with the community hospitals context is a quality tool that can be applied to assess or develop innovative leadership in the community hospital contexts of Thailand.