GAINS-hotspot seminar

Looking beyond network governance mechanisms: the role of organizational goal attainment and social comparison in a primary care network

During this seminar Galina van der Weert will present her recent work with Joris Knoben and Katarzyna Burzynska. We studied a primary care network and the role of social comparison and organizational goal attainment in the relationship between involvement and perceived network goal attainment from a network governance perspective.

Currently, a policy reflex to deal with wicked problems in society is to implement networks. Specifically in healthcare it seems that inter-organizational networks are an often used instrument to increase accessibility, affordability and quality of care. Network governance theory prescribes organizational contingency factors that should result in network goal attainment. However, there is little empirical support for these models and they are focused on formal aspects of network coordination. It is likely that psychosocial factors affect goal attainment as well. We study how involvement, social comparison, and the pursuit of organizational goals affect members’ perceptions of network goal attainment in a local primary care network in the Netherlands. Our findings show that social comparison and organizational goal attainment mediate the relationship between involvement and perceived network goal attainment. Psychosocial factors should be taken into account in research on network performance.