Sailing through waves A qualitative multiple case study into adequate decision-making and risk management practices in Dutch nursing homes during the Covid-19 pandemic
Keywords
No Thumbnail Available
Authors
Issue Date
2022-05-31
Language
en
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
In the early months of 2020, societies from all over the world started experiencing the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic. Especially for nursing homes, the wave of uncertainty posed a serious threat, given the fact that Covid proved harmful for people with a fragile health condition, who are clustered in nursing homes. This research aims to understand adequate decision-making and risk management practices of nursing homes in Gelderland, The Netherlands, in the context of the pandemic. Up until now, there is no existing literature on adequate decision-making and risk management in times of a pandemic in The Netherlands and although pandemics occur rarely, valuable lessons must be learned for future events.
The research question is: “How does risk perception of OPBDs influence both adequate decision-making and risk management practices in nursing homes in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic?”, which is researched as a (qualitative) multiple case study. Data is gathered by interviewing six OPBDs (one-person board of directors) using semi-structured interviews. The final conclusion is that risk perception is not a decisive and influencing factor in achieving adequate decision-making and risk response. Lack of experience of managing a similar situation and lack of control in the uncertain situation are more likely to influence risk management, since the small deviations in risk responses of the OPBDs cannot be related to differences in risk perception.
Regardless of this conclusion, there are a number of practical recommendations based on the reflections of the different OPBDs, which can be divided into three categories: 1) Basic preparedness, 2) Focus, and 3) Flexibility. These recommendations provide guidance for OPBDs in decision-making and risk management, to create a solid level of organisational preparedness, with focus on the strategic goals that matter the most, while emphasizing the importance of flexibility when having to deal with uncertainty threatening the achievement of these goals.
For future research, it is advised to pay attention to biases in measuring risk perception, since the concept used in this research is inadequately operationalised. Besides that, it would be interesting to look into other provinces of The Netherlands, for example the Southern provinces, to compare the outcomes of this research with the provinces that were first to be hit by Covid-19. Finally, it is also interesting to analyse the one-person boards of directors with the ‘logic of uncertainty’ theory, to discover beneficial ways of decision-making and risk management with future threatening events, characterised by uncertainty and lack of control.
Description
Citation
Supervisor
Faculty
Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen