Knowledge Management-oriented Innovation in Medical Tourism

Despite the considerable growth of interest in medical tourism, there are no standard procedures to measure the main factors in medical tourism destinations. Medical tourism is a rising global phenomenon that is strongly dependent on innovation and knowledge management and demands systematic and innovative hospitals. Hence, being both innovative and systematic in medical tourism requires thought enrichment for knowledge management. The main concern in the current thesis is to inform managers working in medical tourism about the importance of innovation and knowledge management areas by applying both qualitative and quantitative methods. This thesis presents a newly developed tool, ―knowledge management-oriented innovation,‖ to analyze any new product or service from hospitals active in medical tourism. Project Management Body of Knowledge presents 10 areas namely integration, scope, time, cost, quality, human resources, communication, risk, procurement, and stakeholder management. Standard steps of all knowledge management areas developed in questionnaires format using the Delphi technique through several meetings and consultations with a committee of professional project managers in Iran. An expert review and pilot study in hospitals evaluated the developed close-ended, Likert-type scale items by examining 40 questionnaires, and the results of confirmatory factor analysis and exploratory factor analysis supported the accuracy of the items. By examining whether time, cost, and quality management orientation in innovation processes will increase innovation speed and operational performance, this thesis presents their positive effects for medical tourism and especially international hospitals in Iran. The results present how the selected knowledge management areas will impact operational performance through the mediating role of innovation speed. Broadly speaking, cost and quality management-oriented innovation facilitate innovation speed and operational performance, while innovation speed is a mediator. Regarding time management-oriented innovation, in the current thesis and for this case study, it has a positive and direct relation with innovation speed but does not present a positive and statistically significant relation with operational performance for international hospitals in Iran. Keywords: knowledge management area, innovation, hospital, medical tourism, operational performance.