Trial lecture - time and place
Tuesday 25 August at 10:15 in room B-137
Title of the trial lecture:
"Investigating healthcare management competencies in different countries and at different management levels. What are the pitfalls? Exploring the need for a variations of theoretical perspectives."
Defence starts at 12:15 in room B-137
Adjudication committee
- Professor/Dean Christopher Burton - University of East Anglia, Norwich
- Professor Lars Erik Kjekshus - University of Oslo
- Professor Silje Loiuse Dahl - Volda University College
Chair of defence
Dean Oskar Solenes, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, Molde University College
Supervisors
Main supervisor:
Co-supervisors
- Associate Professor Erlend Vik, Molde University College
- Professor/Associate Dean Zhanming Liang, James Cook University
- Associate Professor Tonje Hungnes, Molde University College
Background
Healthcare services are becoming increasingly complex. Managers must balance patient safety and quality, employee needs, professional autonomy, financial constraints, reforms and continuous organisational change. Competent management is therefore widely regarded as important for well-functioning and sustainable healthcare services. Norwegian policy documents have repeatedly emphasised the need to strengthen management competency and to map the competencies of healthcare managers. At the same time, there has been little clarity about which competencies managers need, how these competencies should be described and whether models developed in other countries are suitable for the Norwegian healthcare system.
The PhD work was initiated to address these gaps. It examines healthcare management competency from three perspectives: how it is described in research, how it can be translated into a structured assessment model and how managers experience its relevance and usefulness in everyday work. The studies include a review of international research, the translation and pilot testing of an Australian competency model in Norway and focus-group discussions with frontline managers in municipal healthcare services.
Findings
The need for competent managers in healthcare services has been increasingly highlighted in research as well as in Norwegian Policy documents in the past decades. Healthcare managers are expected to ensure high-quality services, support employees, manage limited resources and implement continuous changes. Yet there is limited agreement about what healthcare management competency actually involves or how it should be assessed.
This thesis examines how such competency can be understood, described and evaluated in the Norwegian healthcare system. It shows that management competency includes more than knowledge and technical skills; it also involves values, attitudes, relationships, personal qualities and the ability to exercise judgement in complex situations. A healthcare management competency model was translated and adapted for use in Norway and was considered relevant by participating managers. However, the findings also show that managers are not always able to use their competencies as intended because of staffing shortages, time pressure, administrative demands and limited organisational support. The thesis therefore argues that strengthening healthcare management requires attention not only to the individual manager, but also to the organisational conditions that enable competent management in practice.
Impact
The research provides a clear and comprehensive understanding of what healthcare management competency involves. It offers a framework that can support future research, management education, recruitment, professional development and the design of competency-assessment tools. The Norwegian adaptation of the competency model may provide a basis for further development of a tool for identifying managers’ strengths and development needs. However, the thesis also shows that such tools must be used with care. Competency cannot be fully captured through standardised questionnaires, and high scores do not necessarily mean that managers are able to apply their competencies in practice. A broader contribution is the finding that management competency is not solely an individual responsibility. Even highly competent managers may struggle to perform well when they face excessive workloads, staffing shortages, limited autonomy or inadequate support. Efforts to improve healthcare management should therefore combine education and competency development with improvements in working conditions, organisational structures and access to resources. This insight may be relevant beyond healthcare, particularly in other public services where managers operate under strong professional, political and financial pressures.
About the candidate
Ingrid Marie Leikvoll Oskarsson (44) comes from Molde. She has an interdisciplinary educational background. She has studied Middle Eastern studies at the University of Bergen and language, culture and analysis at the Norwegian Defense College. She later completed a Master’s degree in Social Change, Organisation and Management at Molde University College. She has worked as a military analyst in the Norwegian Army, providing decision-making support to Norwegian authorities and contributing to security and development analyses and bilateral cooperation. She is currently a lecturer at Molde University College, where she teaches in the fields of organisation, management, leadership and political science.