Context and Competencies: Assessment of Senior Managers in The Saudi Arabian Healthcare Sector.

Abstract

ABSTRACT

International healthcare systems have been undergoing continuous reform. Crucial to these reforms, leadership and managerial competencies are regarded as the base drivers for their success or failure. However, this thesis departs from the common approach to identify the competencies required for managers to competently fulfil their managerial commitments. These approaches were derived from pre-existing and universally-acclaimed frameworks. This thesis will firstly report on the possible limitations of such approaches as it emphasises that competencies in general are context-dependent. Specific to the case of Saudi Arabia, the thesis demonstrates that the reform of the Saudi healthcare system detailed in the 2030 Vision will be determined and initiated by implementing the most appropriate managerial competencies for that healthcare context.

The approach used in this thesis, to define the concept of managerial competencies, is prompted by the intended privatisation of the Saudi healthcare system in the 2030 Vision. It is based on private sector senior managers’ interpretation of their managerial work and the competencies needed to optimise it, gleaned through analysis of semi-structured interviews. The identified competencies were then applied to senior managers in the public healthcare sector through the use of questionnaires. The contribution of this thesis is, therefore, to aid identification of the managerial competencies required to enable future planned reform.

The findings of this thesis demonstrate the nature of the managerial work of senior managers in the private setting. This is essential as public managers will be required to work in this setting according to the 2030 Vision. This thesis provides an array of managerial and leadership competencies that are required, rooted in the Saudi Arabian context and brought about by educating and training senior managers working in the public sector. This enables this research to fill a gap in the literature and establish a new understanding of competencies not only characterised by context-dependency but also their crucial nature in relation to the success or failure of healthcare system reform in Saudi Arabia.