Determining the role of values on strategic choices: An examination in Libyan health ministry hospitals

Strategic choice can be defined as an outcome of the process of determining the set of possible choices for the organization to achieve its goals. It is an administrative activity and it is accepted in the literature that values affect the choices people make and they can appear in decisions. Values are the most powerful inspirations of activity. Ultimately, strategic choice process can be thought as a mirror of values. For profit organizations, the concept of strategy has a widespread usage and strategic choice process takes attention of researchers but there are limited researches in public organizations related to strategy. Moreover, being in a niche field, public hospitals need to be examined in terms of their strategic choice process. Hospitals are not only the place where the disease is diagnosed and treated, as well as they are the organizations need to be managed. Through of the foregoing the main purpose of this study is to explain the role of personal values and organizational values on managers' perceptions related to the factors that determine strategic choice in the public hospitals of Libya. In accordance with the literature terminal vales and instrumental values were accepted as personal values and organizational values take into consideration as a different aspect values. Besides, as it was explained in the literature about strategic choice, managers' perceptions related to external control, organizational resources, nature of public organization, organizational goals, time orientation and leadership accepted as deterministic factors of strategic choice. Based on the main purpose of the study an empirical research was conducted with executive managers of the public hospitals affiliated to Libyan Health Ministry. Data of the study was collected by means of questionnaire technique. In order to explore the relationships between variables of the study correlation analysis and regression analysis were utilized. Thus, hypotheses of the study were tested in terms of statistical analysis. In this context, findings of this study will help executive managers of Libyan public hospitals to broaden their awareness about the role of values on strategic choice process.