Title: A comparative study of organisational and individual resistance to implementation of e-health technology in France, South Korea, Italy, Great Britain, and the USA

Authors: David Bangert, Robert Doktor

Addresses: University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2404 Maile Way, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA. ' University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2404 Maile Way, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA

Abstract: Management is the act of co-ordinating and controlling disparate entities so as to achieve common goals. Co-ordination and control have both a formal bureaucratic, structural side and an informal, social, and cultural side. In studies of e-health systems, well-designed formal bureaucratic structures were not sufficient to ensure acceptable utilisation rates of e-health technologies. Qualitative research has yielded organisational, structural and cultural dimensions related to uncertainty avoidance which may explain some of the variance in utilisation rates. Cross-national studies of e-health utilisation and cultural levels of uncertainty avoidance supply evidence of the role this dimension of culture may play in effective e-health implementations. High uncertainty avoidance nations, such as South Korea and France appear to have higher utilisation success in e-health implementations than in low uncertainty avoidance nations such as Great Britain and the United States.

Keywords: e-healthcare; healthcare; mechanistic; national culture; organic; organisational culture; organisational design; telemedicine.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHTM.2004.004821

International Journal of Healthcare Technology and Management, 2004 Vol.6 No.1, pp.121 - 135

Published online: 07 Jul 2004 *

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