Managing Cross-Functional Collaboration to Improve Innovativeness in Hospitals: An Overview of Hospital-Specific Characteristics and Success Factors

Cross-functional collaboration is an opportunity to improve innovativeness in hospitals and, thus, address current challenges in healthcare. To fully benefit from the positive effects of cross-functional collaboration and simultaneously avoid potential negative effects, cross-functional collaboration must be managed actively. However, hospitals have specific characteristics that distinguish them from other industries and that have the potential to impede cross-functional collaboration. Therefore, hospital-specific characteristics must be identified and considered during the implementation and management of cross-functional collaboration. Furthermore, the literature provides numerous success factors for cross-functional collaboration. The aim here is to identify the most relevant and applicable factors. This chapter briefly summarizes the current research on cross-functional collaboration in general, as well as in a hospital-specific context. Furthermore, it describes in detail the most important hospital-specific characteristics and presents a structured overview of applicable success factors of cross-functional collaboration, which can increase the effectiveness of cross-functional collaboration in hospitals.