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Nembhard Awarded Best Paper Based on a Dissertation by the Academy of Management’s Health Care Management Division

Ingrid M. Nembhard, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Division of Health Policy and Administration was recently awarded Best Paper Based on a Dissertation by the Academy of Management’s Health Care Management Division at its annual meeting in Philadelphia in August.  The Academy of Management is the oldest and largest scholarly management association in the world, serving 18,000 members from over 100 nations. 

During the meeting, Nembhard presented her paper entitled, “Learning in Quality Improvement Collaboratives: Which Collaborative Model Features Matter Most?”   She stated, “I am truly honored to receive this recognition from the health care management academic community. Since I entered health services research, my goal has been to apply organizational theory to advance knowledge of how health care delivery organizations can improve the quality of care they provide.”

Nembhard’s dissertation entitled, “Organizational Learning in Health Care: A Multi-method Study of Quality Improvement Collaboratives,” aims to advance empirical research on organizational learning by examining the improvement efforts of health care organizations involved in quality improvement “collaboratives.”  Collaboratives are organized programs in which teams from multiple institutions work to improve care around a specific topic.

Nembhard first assessed which features of collaboratives matter most for learning, using survey, archival, interview and observation data from participants in four collaboratives sponsored by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.  Second, “I capitalized on the existence of collaboratives to investigate interorganizational learning in health care, a process that has received scant attention in the organizational learning and health care management literatures.” She proposed and tested a model of interorganizational learning activity (ILA).
 
According to Nembhard, results demonstrated that organizational improvement is increased by the use of ILA, influenced by team, organizational, collaborative and task characteristics.  “Notably, collaborative identification and team functioning play important mediating and moderating roles, respectively.”  

In addition, Nembhard found that “leader inclusiveness” (words and deeds exhibited by leaders that invite and appreciate others' contributions) can help contribute to overcoming the inhibiting effects of status differences, and facilitating engagement in quality improvement work by staff not serving on collaborative teams.” Together, the findings offer insight into antecedents of and strategies for fostering intra- and inter-organizational learning, and ultimately improvement, in health care.

Her dissertation advisor was Professor Amy C. Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management, at Harvard Business School.

Nembhard’s research focuses on organizational learning in health care.  “As I begin my first year on the faculty at Yale, I am energized to continue to pursue projects that uncover strategies for performance improvement in health care, and that promote collaboration for organizational learning within and across health care organizations.”

She has a joint affiliation with the Yale School of Public Health and the Yale School of Management and will be teaching Managing Performance in Health Care Delivery Organizations in Spring 2008.

Nembhard graduated with a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Harvard University in 2007. Her concentration was Health Policy and Management with a focus on Organizational Behavior.  She also holds a Master of Science degree from Harvard School of Public Health and received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Ethics, Politics and Economics and Psychology from Yale University.