University of Twente Student Theses

Login

Collaboration and technological innovation in Dutch elderly care organizations

Coenen, S. (2019) Collaboration and technological innovation in Dutch elderly care organizations.

[img] PDF
1MB
Abstract:Demographic change, especially in the ageing society, is an important challenge for many countries and organizations across the globe such as China and the Netherlands. These countries face the same problem: a growing population of the elderly and a decline of the younger generation providing informal care. This way, elderly care organizations as well as governments face the task of supporting the increased flow of elderly who need care. In current society, technological innovations can support the provision of care for the population of aged people. However, technologies can be costly and time intensive. This way, collaborating is becoming more popular among organizations due to the use of joint resources. The current master thesis explores how collaborative networks of managers within Dutch elderly care organizations are constructed in order to develop, adopt and implement technological innovations. In addition, this master thesis will elaborate why these Dutch elderly care managers collaborate for technological innovation. Hypothesized is that differences exist in collaborative networks of elderly care organizations when developing, adopting or implementing technological innovations. An online survey was sent to institutionalized Dutch elderly care organizations which allowed to explore the networks of elderly care organizations for technological innovation (n=38). The results of the research indicate that characteristics of collaborative networks of elderly care organizations differ between adoption and implementation looking at the strong and weak ties within these networks. Furthermore, development activities are related to gaining knowledge, adoption activities found to be not related to political reasons and implementation found not be based on cost effectiveness but more in providing the needed service delivery. Technologies established within the current collaborations are focused on the safety of the elderly and mainly access sensors technologies. For the Public Administration science, these results gave incentives to further research the relation between governments and elderly care organizations to stimulate the establishment of technological innovations. Consequently, efficient decisions can be made in the light of developing policy that is compatible for governments as well as elderly care organizations. Relating this to the geographical changes in society, the elderly can be better supported with more advanced technological innovations such as robotics. In addition, more information about effective policy strategies for collaborating for technological innovation can enhance the establishment of more advanced technologies which can support the growing population of the elderly.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:88 social and public administration
Programme:Public Administration MSc (60020)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/77915
Export this item as:BibTeX
EndNote
HTML Citation
Reference Manager

 

Repository Staff Only: item control page