Forecasting the Future of Healthcare Democratization

Health longevity, cost reduction, prevention-based healthcare, personalized medicine, predictive diagnostic, transformed care delivery, de-aging, healthy lifestyle trends, and implementation of intelligent technologies should lead to a more democratized (availability for everyone on this planet) healthcare provision. Forecasting the future of healthcare and health policy certainly is imperfect but nevertheless a precious scientific approach that can lead to novel innovative approaches. In the last decade, the healthcare system faced several challenges, including the significant increase of care costs, demographic changes towards the older population, inability to prevent and overcome pandemics, increased chronic and non-communicable diseases, or resistance to adopting emerging technologies. The need to shift the focus from sickness to health becomes a critical mission. We developed a lecture titled "Healthtech Innovation Design" for graduate students from medicine, biomedical engineering, neuroscience and software engineering. The lecture's goal is to teach innovation methodologies, exponential technologies and methods to achieve healthcare democratization. A critical component is to promote initiatives with global teams focused on the future of health. The educational and initiative programs were impactful in growing interest toward innovation, focusing on disruption and healthcare democratization. Participants awareness towards the main issues and challenges was raised. Interdisciplinary participation was qualitatively processed to generate a holistic vision toward innovation. Through embracing digitalization to a patient-centric approach, affordable care services, and the expansion of precision medicine, the entire healthcare organization and management will likely undergo a worldwide change. Notably, digital technologies, the leverage of artificial intelligence and empathy would satisfy unmet clinical needs. With a future-oriented statement, the forecast of healthcare becomes more imaginable, in which democratization will allow the affordability of services in different countries and economic status.

Trust and Organizational Leadership

Trust is a fundamental part of life. It also remains an essential exchange that fosters a relationship between a leader and employees and between other leaders. Without trust, it is nearly impossible for an organization to be successful. Organizational leaders must facilitate an environment based on trust to navigate the organization successfully. Without trust, organizations tend to derail from their vision and future possibilities. The world begins and ends with leadership, as John Maxwell once said, and leadership begins and ends on trust. Trust requires years of building and nurturing. Without trust, it is nearly impossible for organizations to build relationships or work successfully across cultures and borders. Working in the global economy we know we must act with the understanding that trust is an intricate ingredient when working effectively with global organizations, global teams, and international clients.

THE IMPACT FACTORS ON PROJECT MANAGEMENT SUCCESS IN GLOBAL TEAMS: THE CASE OF COMPANY “X” PROJECTS

Nowadays, with globalization and the development of information technology, global teams are one of the fastest growing types of teams. Communication technology capabilities have significantly reduced the cost of team management and remote collaboration. Current management science has a broad theoretical basis for managing teams that are physically located in one place, but there is much less understanding of how leaders can effectively manage global teams. Company X is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company. All company projects have virtual teams and participants from different countries The goal of this research is to identify and study the factors that influence the success of global project team management and operations in Company X. The research provides answers to the following questions: 1) Which factors impact the project management success at global company X?; 2) What is the impact of a team member’s role and experience on project management success at company X?; 3) What are the cultural differences within the project teams? The data was collected from a survey of two global teams (n=31) at global company X. Team members represent three cultures: Finnish, Indian and Latvian. The analyzed factors were communication, remote communication tools, roles and rules, and trust and cooperation in a multicultural environment. Communication, remote communication tools, and roles and rules showed a statistically significant impact on project management success in global teams. The current role of team members has a negative effect on project management success. No statistically significant differences between cultures were found which supports Cultural Convergence Theory which suggests that two cultures will be more and more like each other as their interactions increase.

Bridging Temporal Divides: Temporal Brokerage in Global Teams and Its Impact on Individual Performance

Members of global teams are often dispersed across time zones. This paper introduces the construct of temporal brokerage, which we define as being in a position within a team’s temporal structure that bridges subgroups that have little or no temporal overlap with each other. Although temporal brokerage is not a formal role, we argue that occupying such a position makes an individual more likely to take on more coordination work than other members on the team. We suggest that, while engaging in such coordination work has advantages in the form of enhanced integrative complexity, it also comes with costs in the form of a greater workload relative to other members. We further argue that the increased integrative complexity and workload that result from occupying a position of temporal brokerage have implications that go beyond the boundaries of the focal team, spilling over into other projects the individual is engaged in. Specifically, we predict that being in positions of temporal brokerage on global teams decreases the quantity but increases the quality of an individual’s total productive output. We find support for these predictions across two studies comprising 4,553 individuals participating in global student project teams and 123,586 individuals participating in global academic research teams, respectively. The framework and findings presented in this paper contribute to theories of global teamwork, pivotal roles and leadership emergence in global teams, and social network theory.

Managing Global Teams and a Multicultural Workforce

In order to enable organisations to succeed in contemporary times, it has become necessary for them to draw upon a range of actors located in different geographies. Instead of viewing the multiple cultures of employees located in different geographies as hindrances, it is useful for teams to view them as sources for designing a unique culture. Also, teams may benefit from embracing the paradoxes that are inherent to the context of globally distributed members. Teams need to recognize that the issue of utmost importance is the growth and evolution of their project. In order for a project to achieve its objectives, teams may need to build a balance between individual contributions and collective deliberations.