Comparison of organizational learning capabilities of the personnel in public and private sector hospitals of Kermanshah

Background: Hospitals are among the most interactive organizations in which the rate of knowledge transfer and learning is considerably high. The investigation of the level of organizational learning between public and private sector hospitals can be useful for managers to select proper organizational learning strategies aiming at improving service delivery and organizational behaviour (1). This study was carried out to compare the organizational learning capabilities of the personnel in public and private sector hospitals of Kermanshah.

Methods: This descriptive survey was performed on the personnel in public and private sector hospitals of Kermanshah. According to Krejcie and Morgan’s table, 175 employees were selected via stratified random sampling from 6 public and 2 private hospitals. The instrument for gathering data was Organizational Learning Capability Questionnaire (OLCQ) by Gomez et al. (2005) (2). Data were analysed by inferential statistics (K-S test, Levene’s test, t-test, one-way ANOVA using SPSS software (version 20.00). 

Results: The level of organizational learning capabilities of personnel was higher in the private hospitals than in public hospitals, indicating a statistically significant difference between them (T ₍₂₆₎= 11.779, P<0.01). Also, there were not a significant difference among organizational learning capabilities of the personnel in public hospitals of Kermanshah (P>0.01، F (3, 68) = 1.859).  

Conclusion: With regard to the higher average of knowledge transfer and integration than the other capabilities in public and private hospitals, it seems that the managers of hospitals should make use of this component to promote the organizational knowledge of the personnel and improve other organizational learning capabilities too.