Accelerating Adoption of Clinical Innovations: Insights on Strategic Leadership Styles for Fostering Dynamic Capabilities by Public Referral Hospitals in Nairobi City County, Kenya

Abstract

It is unclear if there is a significant link between dynamic organisational capabilities and the adoption of clinical innovations. Specifically, Dynamic capabilities are the adaptive, innovative, and strategic resources organisations purposely utilise in complex and uncertain situations over a long time. The increasing need to understand how productive dynamic capabilities inform healthcare leaders to elevate decision quality in healthcare particularly to impact the implementation of clinical innovations remains underexplored in public referral hospitals. The research employed a nomothetic, descriptive, and cross-sectional survey design, gathering data from 189 consented healthcare leaders in four public referral hospitals in Nairobi City County. This approach offers advantages over idiographic methods by providing a broader understanding of general laws, patterns, or trends applicable to a large population. The data were collected through a digitized questionnaire. Descriptive and inferential results were presented numerically within text or tables and figures with organisational capabilities showing positive and statistical relationships with clinical innovation adoption (β = 0.2145; CI 95% [0.0512-0.3777], p = 0.01).  In conclusion, organizational capabilities are shown as the most statistically significant and positive factors in the adoption of clinical innovations by public referral hospitals in Nairobi City County. This has implications for healthcare managers, theory, policy, and practice on where to focus and invest more and to aid them in choosing the most efficacious strategic leadership style. Managerial recommendation entails sustainably adopting clinical innovations through effective organizational capability development and maintenance. Additionally, policy changes can streamline innovation implementation, suggesting areas for further research.