The impact of managers' perceptions of learning organizations on innovation in healthcare: sample of Turkey

Organizational learning is the process of increasing effective organizational activities through knowledge and understanding. Innovation is the creation of any product, service or process, which is new to a business unit. Significant amount of research on organizational learning place a central meaning on the fact that there is a positive relationship between organizational learning and innovation. Both organizational learning and innovation are essential for organizations to prepare for change. The aim of this study is to determine to what extent the identified learning organization dimensions are associated with innovation. The study used a quantitative non‐experimental design employing statistical analysis via multiple regression and correlation methods to identify the relationships between the variables examined. Because the research was conducted in a non‐experimental way, learning organization dimensions are referred to as predictor variables, and innovation is referred to as the criterion variable. Watkins and Marsick's Dimensions of the Learning Organization Questionnaire was used in the study. Questionnaires were distributed to 498 hospital managers and, 243 valid responses were used in this study. Therefore, 243 hospital managers working at 250 Ministry of Health (public) hospitals across Turkey participated in the study. Results demonstrate that there are significant and positive correlations between learning organization dimensions and innovation. Intercorrelations between learning organization dimensions and correlations between learning organization dimensions and innovation were average and high, respectively. Results further indicate that the dimensions of the learning organizations explained 66.5% of the variance for the innovation. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.