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Conducting research within an organization.

© Copyright Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD, Authenticity Consulting, LLC . A Field Guide to Nonprofit Program Design, Marketing, and Evaluation

Sections of This Topic Include

Description, announce data collection to members of the organization, prepare participants before data collection, if you encounter questionable or illegal practices.

Also, consider

• Related Library Topics
• There Is No Hope Of Doing Perfect Research
• Creating and Implementing Your Data Collection Plan

The following guidelines assume that you have already carefully developed a research plan and are getting ready to collect information within an organization. Ideally, you developed the research plan in a highly collaborative manner with a Project Team that includes some members of the organization. The organization might be a team, department, or overall organization. You might be doing research as part of an overall organizational evaluation or as a consultant doing the Discovery Phase of consulting.

To ensure a highly participative collection, it is critical that it maintains the ongoing commitment and ownership of its participants. Probably the most critical point in which to start cultivating that kind of buy-in is when first announcing the data collection. The announcement must be done carefully to help participants quickly realize and accept the need for the collection– so that they do not react that it is, for example, a deeply intrusive evaluation of their personal performance. Here are some suggestions to consider.

1. The Chief Executive Office and a Board member should announce the data collection to the employees. They should mention:

• Its purpose and benefits
• How the employees are expected to participate in it
• When they will get the results of it
• How they can share their ongoing feedback about how its results will be implemented
• The members of the Project Team, especially the members of the organization
• A primary contact person, if they have any further questions

Special care should be given to ensure sufficient time for reactions, questions, and suggestions.

2. Accompany the announcement with an official memo. The memo should soon follow the announcement and be signed by upper management. It should reiterate the information shared during the announcement.

Carefully prepare those who will be providing data — you should not start simply by asking them for input. Consider the following guidelines.

1. Management should introduce the researcher(s) to the organization. One of the most powerful ways to do this introduction is in a group, for example, in an employee meeting. The introduction should include the researcher’s description of how the information will be collected, along with any terms of confidentiality. Include time for their questions and suggestions.

2. Tell participants what is expected of them during the collection. Explain how information will be collected, and when and how they can participate. Mention any pre-work that would be useful for them to undertake and any topics or activities that they should think about before participating in the collection.

3. Contact each participant before conducting any interviews. Interviews can be a rather personal way to get useful information. It helps a great deal if the interviewer calls each participant before the actual interview in order to introduce themselves, verify the timing of the upcoming interview, and understand if the participant has any questions.

4. Review useful organizational documentation before contacting anyone. The review of documentation is a major form of data collection. The researcher can learn a great deal about the organization from the documents. That understanding is an advantage because participants soon realize that the researcher already knows a great deal about the organization. See How to Review Documentation .

Occasionally, a researcher uncovers organizational activities that seem immoral, for example, a violation of your professional standards and those in society, significant lies in the workplace or intentionally withholding very useful information from others. You might even encounter activities that are illegal, such as misappropriation of funds, fraud, theft, or violation of employment laws. This video shares guidelines for how to deal with those kinds of situations.

Learn More in the Library’s Blogs Related to Planning Business Research

In addition to the articles on this current page, also see the following blogs that have posts related to Planning Business Research. Scan down the blog’s page to see various posts. Also, see the section “Recent Blog Posts” in the sidebar of the blog or click on “Next” near the bottom of a post in the blog. The blog also links to numerous free related resources.

• Library’s Business Planning Blog
• Library’s Building a Business Blog
• Library’s Strategic Planning Blog

For the Category of Business Research:

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A | Scientific Method in Organizational Research

Students of management often complain about “theoretical” or “abstract” approaches to a subject; they argue instead in favor of “relevant” and “applied” approaches. The feeling is that there usually exist two distinct ways to study a topic, and from a managerial standpoint, a focus on application is the preferred way. Serious reflection about this problem may suggest a somewhat different approach, however. Consider the following situation.

As a personnel manager for a medium-sized firm, you have been asked to discover why employee turnover in your firm is so high. Your boss has told you that it is your responsibility to assess this problem and then to offer suggestions aimed at reducing turnover. What will you do? Several possible strategies come to mind:

• Talk with those who have quit the organization.
• Talk with those who remain.
• Talk to the employees’ supervisors.
• Consult with personnel managers in other companies.
• Measure job satisfaction.
• Examine company policies and practices.
• Examine the jobs where most turnover occurs.

None of these actions will likely be very successful in helping you arrive at sound conclusions, however. Talking with those who have left usually yields a variety of biased responses by those who either want to “get back at” the company or who fear that criticism will negatively affect their chances for future recommendations. Talking with those still employed has similar problems: why should they be candid and jeopardize their jobs? Talking with supervisors will not help if they themselves are the problem. Asking other personnel managers, while comforting, ignores major differences between organizations. Measuring job satisfaction, examining company policies, or examining the jobs themselves may help if one is fortunate enough to hit upon the right problem, but the probability of doing so is minimal. In short, many of the most obvious ways a manager can choose to solve a problem may yield biased results at best, and possibly no results at all.

A more viable approach would be to view the situation from a research standpoint and to use accepted methods of scientific inquiry to arrive at a solution that minimizes biased results. Most of what we know about organizational behavior results from efforts to apply such methods in solving organizational problems (e.g., How do we motivate employees? How do we develop effective leaders? How do we reduce stress at work?). An awareness of the nature of scientific inquiry is useful for understanding how we learned what we know about organizations as well as in facilitating efforts to solve behavioral problems at work.

Theory Building in Organizations

Briefly stated, a theory is a set of statements that serves to explain the manner in which certain concepts or variables are related. These statements result both from our present level of knowledge on the topic and from our assumptions about the variables themselves. The theory allows us to deduce logical propositions, or hypotheses, that can be tested in the field or laboratory. In short, a theory is a technique that helps us understand how variables fit together. Their use in research and in management is invaluable.

Uses of a Theory

Why do we have theories in the study of organizational behavior? First, theories help us organize knowledge about a given subject into a pattern of relationships that lends meaning to a series of observed events. They provide a structure for understanding. For instance, rather than struggling with a lengthy list of factors found to relate to employee turnover, a theory of turnover might suggest how such factors fit together and are related.

Second, theories help us to summarize diverse findings so that we can focus on major relationships and not get bogged down in details. A theory “permits us to handle large amounts of empirical data with relatively few propositions.” [M. E. Shaw and P. R. Costanzo, Theories of Social Psychology (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1970), p. 9.]

Finally, theories are useful in that they point the way to future research efforts. They raise new questions and suggest answers. In this sense, they serve a useful heuristic value in helping to differentiate between important and trivial questions for future research. Theories are useful both for the study and for the management of organizations. As Kurt Lewin said, “There is nothing so practical as a good theory.”

What Is a Good Theory?

Abraham Kaplan discusses in detail the criteria for evaluating the utility or soundness of a theory. [A. Kaplan, The Conduct of Inquiry (San Francisco: Chandler, 1964).] At least five such criteria can be mentioned:

• Internal consistency. Are the propositions central to the theory free from contradiction? Are they logical?
• External consistency. Are the propositions of a theory consistent with observations from real life?
• Scientific parsimony. Does the theory contain only those concepts that are necessary to account for findings or to explain relationships? Simplicity of presentation is preferable unless added complexity furthers understanding or clarifies additional research findings.
• Generalizability. In order for a theory to have much utility, it must apply to a wide range of situations or organizations. A theory of employee motivation that applies only to one company hardly helps us understand motivational processes or apply such knowledge elsewhere.
• Verification. A good theory presents propositions that can be tested. Without an ability to operationalize the variables and subject the theory to field or laboratory testing, we are unable to determine its accuracy or utility.

To the extent that a theory satisfies these requirements, its usefulness both to researchers and to managers is enhanced. However, a theory is only a starting point. On the basis of theory, researchers and problem solvers can proceed to design studies aimed at verifying and refining the theories themselves. These studies must proceed according to commonly accepted principles of the scientific method.

Scientific Method in Organizational Behavior Research

Cohen and Nagel suggested that there are four basic “ways of knowing.” [M. Cohen and E. Nagel, An Introduction to Logic and Scientific Inquiry (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1943). See also E. Lawler, A. Mohrman, S. Mohrman, G. Ledford, and T. Cummings, Doing Research That Is Useful for Theory and Practice (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1985).] Managers and researchers use all four of these techniques: tenacity, intuition, authority, and science. When managers form a belief (e.g., a happy worker is a productive worker) and continue to hold that belief out of habit and often in spite of contradictory information, they are using tenacity. They use intuition when they feel the answer is self-evident or when they have a hunch about how to solve a problem. They use authority when they seek an answer to a problem from an expert or consultant who supposedly has experience in the area. Finally, they use science —perhaps too seldom—when they are convinced that the three previous methods allow for too much subjectivity in interpretation.

In contrast to tenacity, intuition, and authority, the scientific method of inquiry “aims at knowledge that is objective in the sense of being intersubjectively certifiable, independent of individual opinion or preference, on the basis of data obtainable by suitable experiments or observations.” [C. G. Hempel, Aspects of Scientific Explanation (New York: The Free Press, 1965), p. 141.] In other words, the scientific approach to problem-solving sets some fairly rigorous standards in an attempt to substitute objectivity for subjectivity.

The scientific method in organizational behavior consists of four stages: (1) observation of the phenomena (facts) in the real world, (2) formulation of explanations for such phenomena using the inductive process, (3) generation of predictions or hypotheses about the phenomena using the deductive process, and (4) verification of the predictions or hypotheses using systematic, controlled observation. This process is shown in Exhibit A1 . When this rather abstract description of the steps of scientific inquiry is shown within the framework of an actual research study, the process becomes much clearer. A basic research paradigm is shown in Exhibit A2 . In essence, a scientific approach to research requires that the investigator or manager first recognize clearly what research questions are being posed. To paraphrase Lewis Carroll, if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there. Many managers identify what they think is a problem (e.g., turnover) only to discover later that their “problem” turnover rate is much lower than that in comparable industries. Other managers look at poor employee morale or performance and ignore what may be the real problem (e.g., poor leadership).

On the basis of the research questions, specific hypotheses are identified. These hypotheses represent best guesses about what we expect to find. We set forth hypotheses to determine if we can predict the right answer so we can select a study design that allows for suitable testing. On the basis of the study design (to be discussed shortly), we observe the variables under study, analyze the data we collect, and draw relevant conclusions and management implications. When we follow this process, the risks of being guided by our own opinions or prejudices are minimized, and we arrive at useful answers to our original research questions.

Basic Research Designs

Although a detailed discussion of the various research designs is beyond the scope of this Appendix, we can review several common research designs that have been used to collect data in the study of people at work. Specifically, we will examine five different research designs that are frequently used to study behavior at work: (1) naturalistic observation, (2) survey research, (3) field study, (4) field experiment, and (5) laboratory experiment. In general, the level of rigor of the design increases as we move from naturalistic observation toward laboratory study. Unfortunately, so do the costs, in many cases.

Criteria for Evaluating Research Designs

Before examining the five designs, it will be helpful to consider how a researcher selects from among the various designs. Clearly, no one strategy or design is superior in all cases. Each has its place, depending upon the research goals and the constraints placed on the research.

However, when choosing among the potential designs, researchers generally must consider several things. For example, does the design require that you specify hypotheses a priori? If you specify appropriate hypotheses and are able to confirm them, then you can predict behavior in organizations. As a manager, being able to predict behavior in advance allows you to intervene and make necessary changes to remedy problem situations. The ability to accurately predict behavior is clearly superior to simply being able to explain behavior after the fact.

Other factors to examine are the method of measurement and the degree of control to be used. Does the method of measurement use qualitative or quantitative measures? Although qualitative measures may be useful for generating future hypotheses, quantitative measures add more perceived rigor to results. Also, if you are interested in demonstrating casual relationships, it is necessary to have a high degree of control over the study variables. You must be able to manipulate the primary study variable to determine the results of this manipulation while at the same time keeping other potentially contaminating variables constant so they do not interfere in the results.

In addition, a researcher must know to what extent they can generalize the results from the study to apply to other organizations or situations. Results that are situation-specific are of little use to managers. External validity is of key importance. And, of course, in practical terms, how much is it going to cost to carry out the study and discover a solution? Cost can be measured in many ways, including time and money.

The analysis of the previous five criteria provides insight concerning the overall level of rigor of the research design. The more rigorous the design, the more confidence one has in the results. This is because more rigorous designs typically employ more accurate measures or interventions and attempt to control for contaminating influences on study results. With this in mind, we can now consider various research designs.

Naturalistic Observation

Naturalistic observations represent the most primitive (least rigorous) method of research in organizations. Simply put, naturalistic observations represent conclusions drawn from observing events. At least two forms of such research can be identified: (1) authoritative opinions and (2) case studies.

Authoritative opinions are the opinions of experts in the field. When Henri Fayol wrote his early works on management, for example, he was offering his advice as a former industrial manager. On the basis of experience in real work situations, Fayol and others suggest that what they have learned can be applied to a variety of work organizations with relative ease. Other examples of authoritative opinions can be found in Barnard’s The Functions of the Executive, Sloan’s My Years with General Motors, and Peters and Waterman’s In Search of Excellence. Throughout their works, these writers attempt to draw lessons from their own practical experience that can help other managers assess their problems.

The second use of naturalistic observation can be seen in the case study. Case studies attempt to take one situation in one organization and to analyze it in detail with regard to the interpersonal dynamics among the various members. For instance, we may have a case of one middle manager who appears to have burned out on the job; his performance seems to have reached a plateau. The case would then review the cast of characters in the situation and how each one related to this manager’s problem. Moreover, the case would review any actions that were taken to remedy the problem. Throughout, emphasis would be placed on what managers could learn from this one real-life problem that can possibly relate to other situations.

Survey Research

Many times, managers wish to know something about the extent to which employees are satisfied with their jobs, are loyal to the organization, or experience stress on the job. In such cases, the managers (or the researchers) are interested mainly in considering quantitative values of the responses. Questionnaires designed to measure such variables are examples of survey research. Here we are not attempting to relate results to subsequent events. We simply wish to assess the general feelings and attitudes of employees.

Surveys are particularly popular with managers today as a method of assessing relative job attitudes. Hence, we may make an annual attitude survey and track changes in attitudes over time. If attitudes begin to decline, management is alerted to the problem and can take steps to remedy the situation.

Field Study

In a field study, the researcher is interested in the relationship between a predictor variable (e.g., job satisfaction) and a subsequent criterion variable (e.g., employee turnover or performance). Measures of each variable are taken (satisfaction, perhaps through a questionnaire, and turnover, from company records) and are compared to determine the extent of correlation. No attempt is made to intervene in the system or to manipulate any of the variables, as is the case with experimental approaches.

To continue the simple example we began with, a manager may have a hypothesis that says that satisfaction is a primary indicator of employee turnover. After measuring both, it is found that there is a moderate relationship between the two variables. Hence, the manager may conclude that the two are probably related. Even so, because of the moderate nature of the relationship, it is clear that other factors also influence turnover; otherwise, there would be a much stronger relationship. The manager concludes that, although efforts to improve job satisfaction may help solve the problem, other influences on turnover must also be looked at, such as salary level and supervisory style.

Field Experiment

A field experiment is much like a field study, with one important exception. Instead of simply measuring job satisfaction, the manager or researcher makes efforts to actually change satisfaction levels. In an experiment, we attempt to manipulate the predictor variable. This is most often done by dividing the sample into two groups: an experimental group and a control group. In the experimental group, we intervene and introduce a major change. Perhaps we alter the compensation program or give supervisors some human relations training. The control group receives no such treatment. After a time, we compare turnover rates in the two groups. If we have identified the correct treatment (that is, a true influence on turnover), turnover rates would be reduced in the experimental group but not in the control group.

In other words, in a field experiment, as opposed to a field study, we intentionally change one aspect of the work environment in the experimental group and compare the impact of the change with the untreated control group. Thus, we can be relatively assured that the solution we have identified is, in fact, a true predictor variable and is of use to management.

Laboratory Experiment

Up to this point, we have considered a variety of research designs that all make use of the actual work environment, the field. In this last design, laboratory experiments, we employ the same level of rigor as that of the field experiment and actually manipulate the predictor variable, but we do so in an artificial environment instead of a real one.

We might, for instance, wish to study the effects of various compensation programs (hourly rate versus piece rate) on performance. To do this, we might employ two groups of business students and have both groups work on a simulated work exercise. In doing so, we are simulating a real work situation. Each group would then be paid differently. After the experiment, an assessment would be made of the impact of the two compensation plans on productivity.

Comparing Research Designs

Now that we have reviewed various research designs, we might wonder which designs are best. This is not an easy call. All designs have been used by managers and researchers in studying problems of people at work. Perhaps the question can best be answered by considering the relative strengths and weaknesses of each, on the basis of our earlier discussion of the criteria for evaluating research designs (see Table A1 ). We should then have a better idea of which design or designs would be appropriate for a particular problem or situation.

Specification of Hypotheses in Advance. It was noted earlier that the ability to specify a priori hypotheses adds rigor to the study. In general, hypotheses are not given for naturalistic observations or survey research. These two techniques are used commonly for exploratory analyses and for identifying pertinent research questions for more rigorous future study. On the other hand, the remaining three designs (field study, field experiment, and laboratory experiment) do allow explicitly for a priori hypotheses. Hence, they are superior in this sense.

Qualitative versus Quantitative Measures. Naturalistic observations typically involve qualitative data, whereas field studies and both forms of experiment typically involve quantitative data. Survey research most often provides for both. Hence, if it is important to collect hard data concerning a problem (e.g., what is the magnitude of the relationship between satisfaction and turnover?), quantitative designs are to be preferred. On the other hand, if one is more concerned about identifying major reasons for turnover and little prior knowledge about the problem exists, qualitative data may be preferred, and survey research may be a better research strategy. The selection of an appropriate design hinges in part on the intended uses for the information.

Control. As noted earlier, control represents the extent to which potentially contaminating influences can be minimized in a study. Clearly, experimental procedures allow for better control than do nonexperimental ones. The researcher or manager can systematically structure the desired work environment and minimize irrelevant or contaminating influences. As a result, conclusions concerning causal relations between variables can be made with some degree of certainty. Where it is not possible to secure such high control, however—perhaps because the organization does not wish to make a major structural change simply for purposes of an experiment—a field study represents a compromise design. It allows for some degree of control but does not require changing the organization.

External Validity. The question of external validity is crucial to any study. If the results of a study in one setting cannot be applied with confidence to other settings, the utility of the results for managers is limited. In this regard, survey research, field studies, and field experiments have higher levels of external validity than naturalistic observations or laboratory experiments. Naturalistic observations are typically based on nonrandom samples, and such samples often exhibit characteristics that may not allow for transfers of learning from one organization to another. A clear example can be seen in the case of a small company in which the president implemented a unique compensation plan that proved successful. It would be impossible to predict whether such a plan would work in a major corporation, because of the different nature of the organizations. Similarly, there is some question about how realistic a work environment is actually created in a laboratory situation. If managers are to learn from the lessons of other organizations, they should first learn the extent to which the findings from one kind of organization are applicable elsewhere.

Cost. As one would expect, the quality of information and its price covary. The more rigorous the design (and thus the more accurate the information), the higher the cost. Costs can be incurred in a variety of ways and include actual out-of-pocket expenses, time invested, and residue costs. The organization is left with the aftermath of an experiment, which could mean raised employee expectations and anxieties, as well as the possibility of disillusionment if the experiment fails. It should be noted that, in survey research, a large amount of general information can be gathered quickly and cheaply.

Overall Level of Rigor. In summary, then, the real answer to the question concerning which strategy is best lies in the degrees of freedom a manager has in selecting the design. If an experiment is clearly out of the question (perhaps because one’s superior doesn’t want anything altered), a field study may be the best possible strategy, given the constraints. In fact, field studies are often considered a good compromise strategy in that they have a medium amount of rigor but are also fairly quick and inexpensive. On the other hand, if one simply wishes to take an attitude survey, survey research is clearly in order. If one is not allowed to do anything, authoritative opinions from others may be the only information available. However, if constraints are not severe, experimental methods are clearly superior in that they allow for greater certainty concerning major influences on the criterion variable and on the problem itself.

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• Authors: J. Stewart Black, David S. Bright
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• Book title: Organizational Behavior
• Publication date: Jun 5, 2019
• Location: Houston, Texas
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• Methodology
• Open access
• Published: 29 May 2008

The role of organizational research in implementing evidence-based practice: QUERI Series

• Elizabeth M Yano 1 , 2  

Implementation Science volume  3 , Article number:  29 ( 2008 ) Cite this article

29k Accesses

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Health care organizations exert significant influence on the manner in which clinicians practice and the processes and outcomes of care that patients experience. A greater understanding of the organizational milieu into which innovations will be introduced, as well as the organizational factors that are likely to foster or hinder the adoption and use of new technologies, care arrangements and quality improvement (QI) strategies are central to the effective implementation of research into practice. Unfortunately, much implementation research seems to not recognize or adequately address the influence and importance of organizations. Using examples from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Quality Enhancement Research Initiative (QUERI), we describe the role of organizational research in advancing the implementation of evidence-based practice into routine care settings.

Using the six-step QUERI process as a foundation, we present an organizational research framework designed to improve and accelerate the implementation of evidence-based practice into routine care. Specific QUERI-related organizational research applications are reviewed, with discussion of the measures and methods used to apply them. We describe these applications in the context of a continuum of organizational research activities to be conducted before, during and after implementation.

Since QUERI's inception, various approaches to organizational research have been employed to foster progress through QUERI's six-step process. We report on how explicit integration of the evaluation of organizational factors into QUERI planning has informed the design of more effective care delivery system interventions and enabled their improved "fit" to individual VA facilities or practices. We examine the value and challenges in conducting organizational research, and briefly describe the contributions of organizational theory and environmental context to the research framework.

Understanding the organizational context of delivering evidence-based practice is a critical adjunct to efforts to systematically improve quality. Given the size and diversity of VA practices, coupled with unique organizational data sources, QUERI is well-positioned to make valuable contributions to the field of implementation science. More explicit accommodation of organizational inquiry into implementation research agendas has helped QUERI researchers to better frame and extend their work as they move toward regional and national spread activities.

Peer Review reports

Health care organizations exert significant influence on the quality of care through an array of factors that directly or indirectly serve as the context in which clinicians practice and patients experience care [ 1 ]. A greater understanding of this context can be important in closing the gap between research and practice. Each health care setting into which innovations are introduced represents its own organizational milieu, such as the structure and processes that comprise how an organization operates and behaves. Individually or in combination, these structures (e.g., size, staffing) and processes (e.g., practice arrangements, decision support) have the potential to foster or hinder discrete steps in the adoption and use of new technologies, care arrangements, and quality improvement (QI) strategies. Fixsen and colleagues describe such variables as being "like gravity...omnipresent and influential at all levels of implementation" [ 2 ]. Unfortunately, much implementation research has failed to fully recognize or adequately address the influence and importance of health care organizational factors, which may compromise effective implementation of research into practice [ 3 ].

Evaluating the organizational context for delivering evidence-based practice is a critical adjunct to efforts to systematically improve quality. This paper uses the context of and examples from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Quality Enhancement Research Initiative (QUERI) to illustrate a framework for fostering the integration and evaluation of health care organizational factors into the planning and study of the implementation of evidence-based practice within the context of the six-step QUERI model. Based on implementation experiences since QUERI's inception, we describe the role of organizational research using a series of QUERI-specific applications. We also briefly examine the contributions of organizational theory and environmental context to the organizational research framework.

This article is one in a Series of articles documenting implementation science frameworks and approaches developed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Quality Enhancement Research Initiative (QUERI). QUERI is briefly outlined in Table 1 and is described in more detail in previous publications [ 4 , 5 ]. The Series' introductory article [ 6 ] highlights aspects of QUERI related specifically to implementation science and describes additional types of articles contained in the QUERI Series .

Using the six-step QUERI process as a foundation (Table 1 ), we designed an organizational research framework to help improve and accelerate implementation of evidence-based practice into routine care. We reviewed organizational research from specific QUERI Centers, culling and summarizing the organizational measures they included and the methods used to apply them to different implementation research efforts. We describe these applications in the context of a continuum of organizational research activities to be conducted before, during and after implementation.

Role of organizational factors in the QUERI model of implementation research

Evaluation of the influence of organizational characteristics on the quality of care has gained in its salience and value, as efforts to implement evidence-based practice into routine care have grown [ 7 ], although with mixed results [ 8 ]. As interventions to improve quality through structured implementation programs have moved from relatively homogenized "ideal" clinical settings to more diverse clinical environments, where tight research controls may be replaced by handoffs to hospital and practice teams, the organizational context becomes increasingly central to our understanding of what works and does not work in implementing research-defined structures and processes into operational realities [ 9 , 10 ]. Historically, since most clinical and delivery system interventions have been tested in a single or small number of institutions, within which the efficacy of the intervention has been evaluated and honed, organizational conditions have been either ignored (since they assumedly did not vary) or somehow controlled for. As a result, relatively few linkages between organizational structure and quality (either processes or outcomes of care) have been demonstrated [ 11 ]. However, as these clinical and delivery system interventions are implemented in more organizations in diverse settings and in different locales, the ability to implement them in the manner in which they were originally defined and demonstrated to be effective will continue to decline without better and more explicit integration of an organizational research framework into implementation research agendas [ 12 ]. As the need to adapt implementation efforts to local circumstances is increasingly recognized, the value of collecting advance information about structural and process characteristics in target institutions also has become more prominent [ 13 ].

The mechanisms by which organizational structures and processes may influence quality operate at many levels, and as a result, conceptualizations of what is meant by the organization of a health care system, setting or practice vary [ 14 ]. The diversity of how health care organizational factors are framed and defined complicates their measurement and the ability to easily integrate them into efforts to improve quality of care. How individual organizational constructs are conceptualized and measured in relation to implementation research efforts depends, in large part, on the following:

The conceptual model and organizational theory (or theories) underlying the research [ 15 ];

The nature of what is known and/or being hypothesized about the organizational structures and processes underlying evidence-based care for each condition under study [ 16 ];

The size and complexity of the organization itself, such that it is clear whether we are talking about a team, a practice, a network of practices, a system of multiple networks, or some other organizational configuration;

The timing or stage of implementation during which organizational research is being conducted (i.e., as part of planning, during implementation to support adaptation and midcourse corrections, or after implementation in support of interpretation of findings, sustainability and spread) [ 13 ]; and,

The nature of the study designs and evaluation methods needed to demonstrate implementation effectiveness and foster sustainability and spread at the organizational level.

Organizational theory and conceptual frameworks

To date, the use of organizational theory in the design and deployment of evidence-based practices into routine care has been highly variable and generally under-used [ 17 ]. The dilemma for many implementation researchers is the absence of clear guidance on the nature of key theories and how best to use them [ 18 ]. QUERI is no different in this regard. Thus far, QUERI researchers have chiefly adopted useful heuristic models and conceptual frameworks (e.g., Greenhalgh's model, PRECEDE-PROCEED, RE-AIM, Chronic Care Model, complex adaptive systems), organizing measures around general constructs – but not necessarily grounding them in organizational theory [ 19 – 23 ]. New paradigms are needed that integrate salient psychological and organizational theories into a uniform model and make them accessible to implementation researchers [ 24 , 25 ]. In the absence of such paradigms, implementation researchers should capitalize on the contribution of organizational theories already contributed by psychology, sociology, management science and other disciplines in order to be explicit about the anticipated mechanisms of action at the organizational level. For example, these include diffusion theory, social cognitive and influence theories, the theory of planned behaviour, as well as institutional, resource dependency, and contingency theories [ 24 , 26 – 28 ].

What is known about organizational structures and processes underlying evidence-based practice

The Cochrane Effective Practice and Organization of Care (EPOC) group has conducted systematic reviews of a broad array of organizational and related professional practice interventions [ 29 ]. While there is a relative plethora of strategies, programs, tools and interventions in the literature about ways to improve quality, the evidence base for systematically transforming care using established interventions is actually relatively poor [ 30 ], particularly in relation to the "black box" of organizational attributes. Outside of QUERI, organizational strategies for hospital-based quality improvement (QI) have included data systems for monitoring, audit-and-feedback, and decision-support functions; financial support for QI; clinical integration; information system capability such as electronic medical records; [ 31 ], as well as compensation incentives [ 32 ]. Organizational culture as an intervening attribute has had mixed results, with greater influence on the effect of organizational strategies [ 33 ], and limited if any influence in physician organizations [ 34 ]. Practice individuation or tailoring also has had variable success [ 35 – 37 ].

Timing of organizational research applications before, during and after implementation

When to introduce organizational research applications as an adjunct to implementation efforts also has not been well-described. First, organizational factors may be broadly applied as a pre-step to the design of QI interventions by elucidating organizational precursors of high and low performance [ 37 ], or more narrowly applied in preparation for refining an implementation strategy in one or more specific facilities via needs assessment [ 13 ]. During implementation, attention to local organizational structures and processes enables systematic assessment of their influences on fidelity to the evidence (e.g., is the care model being deployed in ways consistent with the evidence base?). Such assessments may be accomplished through qualitative and quantitative methods. Such organizational assessments are sometimes used as an integral function of evaluating implementation in real time to enable mid-course corrections through audits, feedback, and adjustment of intervention elements (formative evaluation) [ 38 ], and other times as post-implementation appraisals.

If done iteratively, as in the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycles of individual quality improvement (QI) projects, local adaptation and resolution of implementation problems at the organizational level may be accelerated. Traditionally applied in continuous quality improvement (CQI), PDSA cycles are generally designed to take a single or few patients or providers through a series of processes underlying a proposed QI activity to iteratively test what works or does not work before investing in widespread policy or practice change [ 39 ]. Each process is refined, and new elements are added or others subtracted until the complete set of actions is found to be effective in a particular setting. In implementation research, PDSA cycles offer the same opportunity to hone implementation strategies in diverse settings. The system level PDSA occurs when the PDSA cycles move from implementation within a single organization to a set of organizations that may or may not be similar in characteristics to the original institution [ 13 ]. Such system-level PDSA cycles are consistent with Phase 2 (i.e., modest multi-site evaluations) or Phase 3 (i.e., large-scale adoption programs) implementation projects in the QUERI pipeline [ 6 ]. Not all QUERI Centers have relied on PDSA approaches for their implementation efforts. However, as more of them move to multi-site implementation trials or are engaged in regional or national spread initiatives, we anticipate that greater appreciation of the details needed to adapt evidence-based practices to different organizational contexts will be helpful.

After implementation ends, traditional process and outcomes evaluations may be augmented with analyses of organizational variations in implementation strategies and outcomes (e.g., system-level effectiveness or costs) and the degree to which organizational factors influence sustainability and spread. Examining the impacts of the newly implemented evidence-based care on the organization as a whole is also an essential evaluation component as they begin to form the foundation for a business case for quality improvement for health care managers. Such a business case might include changes in performance measures, employee satisfaction/retention, or evidence for the organizational return-on-investment associated with changes in care [ 40 , 41 ]. Systematic collection, analysis and reporting of detailed organizational data may then contribute to updated guidelines that integrate effective adaptations for different organizational characteristics.

Study designs and evaluation methods supporting implementation effectiveness

Achieving study designs and methods that produce credible evidence with relevance to "real world" settings is challenging, especially when aiming to evaluate population-based or practice-level interventions [ 42 , 43 ]. Balancing the needs of internal and external validity, pragmatic clinical trials offer participating sites an opportunity to modify the intervention to a degree that is likely to mirror what would happen under routine-care implementation [ 44 , 45 ]. Rather than open the "black box," these trials assume that the known (and unknown) variables are randomly distributed between intervention and control sites. Systematically assessing organizational factors through qualitative or quantitative methods may nonetheless provide a useful empirical complement to our use of pragmatic clinical trials. This is especially true in circumstances when researchers have reason to believe the variables of interest are not, in fact, randomly distributed. These types of data also are likely to improve our understanding of factors that influence provider or site participation [ 46 , 47 ] and the nature of modifications that worked in different organizational contexts [ 48 ].

Ensuring integration of rigorously designed and well-conducted organizational research to the mix will require not only broader recognition of its contribution to the goals of implementation science, but also an organizational research framework, like the one proposed here, that guides researchers to the types of organizational research they ought to be considering each step along the way. We posit that collecting and using organizational data will increase what we are able to learn about what settings, arrangements and resources foster or hinder adoption, penetration, sustainability and spread beyond the trial or implementation process. As Green and Glasgow suggest, "If we want more evidence-based practice, we need more practice-based evidence" [ 49 ].

Common concepts representing health care organizational factors

Several common concepts have been used to describe the characteristics of health care organizations (Table 2 ). For the purposes of generally classifying different types of organizational attributes related to quality of care, we delineate them along the lines of Donabedian's structure, process and outcome framework [ 50 ].

Organizational structures tend to focus on static resources, whether they are related to the physical plant (e.g., amount of clinical space); the functions of care incorporated into the physical plant (e.g., types of specialized units); the equipment they contain (e.g., availability of laboratory or diagnostic equipment, machinery, computers); or the people employed to deliver services (e.g., staffing levels, skill mix) [ 50 ]. These facets may be described as the health care infrastructure, and while they can be changed, they are not typically as mutable as other characteristics [ 51 , 52 ]. Governance, managerial or professional arrangements for overseeing, managing and delivering services (e.g., corporate leadership structures, types of health plan, service lines, and health care teams) also represent structural measures [ 53 – 55 ]. The diffusion of innovation literature portrays these measures as "inner context," pointing to greater assimilation of innovations in organizations that are large (likely a proxy for slack resources and functional differentiation), mature, functionally differentiated (i.e., divided into semi-autonomous departments or units), and specialized (i.e., sufficient complexity representing needed professional knowledge and skill-mix) [ 19 ].

Organizational processes may be distinguished from the classical interpretation of Donabedian's process of care measures by virtue of their role in supporting the actions between provider and patient at a given encounter [ 50 ]. While they are influenced by organizational structure, they tend to be more mutable as they refer to practice arrangements, referral procedures, service coordination, and other organizational actions. Using electronic medical records (EMRs) as an example, the number of computer workstations and types of software may be described as elements of organizational structure, but the ways in which they are used to deliver care (e.g., decision support capacities, communication processes between providers) represent organizational processes underlying health information technology [ 56 ].

The role of culture and relationships as organizational attributes also are important to health care redesign and implementation of evidence-based practice [ 57 ]. Schein has defined culture as a pattern of shared basic assumptions that groups learn as a function of the problems they solve in response to external adaptation and internal integration [ 58 ]. When these group assumptions have worked well enough to be considered valid, they are taught to new members as the correct way to think and feel in relation to those problems (i.e., "This is how things are done around here") [ 58 , 59 ]. As is often the case, evidence-based practice is likely to reflect a new way of doing things, and thus may come into conflict with the prevailing culture of a practice.

There are, however, highly divergent views on how to study culture [ 59 , 60 ]. Culture encompasses a wide range of concepts that capture attitudes, beliefs and feelings about how the organization functions or the role of the individual (or team) within the organization (e.g., leadership, practice autonomy, quality improvement orientation, readiness to change) [ 61 , 62 ]. Culture has been classified as both a structural feature or measurable organizational average that characterizes context or an explicit trait to accommodate, and an organizational process or symbolic approach for viewing the organizational life of an institution [ 57 , 63 ]. Integral to the evaluation of and adaptation to local culture is the need to understand and appreciate the dynamics of relationships within and outside health care organizations that influence the adoption and use of innovations [ 64 , 65 ]. These dynamics may include consequences of political and social ideologies that may exert themselves on what is acceptable organizational behaviour [ 63 ]. Organizational culture is hypothesized to influence operational effectiveness, readiness to adopt new practices, and professional behaviour and style, and is considered by many to be a critical determinant of organizational performance [ 33 , 37 ]. Thus, culture change is commonly treated as an explicit (or implicit) part of efforts to implement evidence-based practice, insofar as QI interventions aim to change business as usual [ 66 – 68 ]. Despite substantial interest in the potential of culture as an organizational attribute, there is no widely agreed upon instrument to measure culture – and no consensus on how best to analyze or apply findings from these data to improve implementation of evidence-based practice. Also, organizational culture as measured among VA employees has been fairly consistent over time, raising issues about its mutability and the measures' sensitivity to change.

Organizational outcomes are akin to other measures of quality at the provider or patient level, with the exception that they are best expressed as the aggregation or roll-up of processes or outcomes at the organizational level. While the unit of analysis may differ (e.g., team, clinic, practice, hospital, system), organizational outcomes are often reflected as performance measures or practice patterns that serve as summary measures of process quality (i.e., the percentage of eligible diabetics receiving foot sensation exams) or intermediate outcomes (i.e., glycemic control among all diabetics in the entire practice). Other outcomes include disease-related outcomes (e.g., complication rates, disease-specific morbidity and mortality), practice-level or population-based measures of effectiveness (e.g., ambulatory care sensitive admission rates, functional status), utilization patterns and costs. Many trials and observational studies of the implementation of evidence-based practice continue to focus on "enrolled" populations rather than the entire practice that would be likely to experience the new care model or practice intervention under routine conditions. Organizational outcomes are distinct only insofar as they represent what the entire practice or institution would experience as a whole once implementation is complete, and are thus inter-related to other evaluation activities.

The role of organizational research in the QUERI model

One of the foundations of QUERI has been to help operationalize the "interdependent relationships among clinicians, managers, policy makers, and researchers" [ 69 ].

The VA QUERI program's progress in conducting a series of progressively larger, multi-site implementation studies brings the nature and importance of organizational factors and the need for related planning into rapid relief. While most efforts outside the VA have focused on only a few and often immutable organizational parameters, such as size, QUERI studies have been able to uniquely capitalize on the size and diversity of the VA health care system to integrate organizational research more systematically. Therefore, the role of organizational research is both to understand the changeability of organizational attributes and, when fixed, to integrate them as modifiers in analyses of the effectiveness and impact of implementation efforts.

In the following sections, we describe the organizational research considerations that parallel the QUERI steps (Table 3 ) and describe examples of QUERI applications for each step (Table 4 ).

Evaluate disease burden and set organizational priorities (Step #1)

In a national health care system like the VA, conditions have been chosen on the basis of nationally prevalent conditions (e.g., diabetics, depression) or those associated with high treatment costs (e.g., HIV/AIDS, schizophrenia). Target conditions also have been updated periodically to accommodate changes over time (e.g., additional focus on hepatitis C added to the QUERI-HIV/Hepatitis Center's mission and scope).

On a national level, all VA facilities have commonly been held to the same performance standards regardless of organizational variations in caseload or resources. In smaller systems or independent health care facilities, organizational priorities should be established based on ascertainment of disease burden at the appropriate target level (e.g., individual practices or clusters of practices). At this step, it is important to determine how salient target conditions are among member organizations or individual practices by evaluating the range or variation in disease burden or performance. Modified Delphi expert panel techniques have been useful in establishing consensus among various organizational stakeholders in order to set institutional priorities [ 70 ]. These techniques entail advance presentation of the evidence base for a particular condition or setting (e.g., compendium of effective interventions based on systematic reviews) [ 71 , 72 ], as well as stakeholders' pre-ratings of their perceptions of organizational needs and resources, followed by an in-person meeting where summary pre-ratings are reviewed and discussed. Participants then re-rate and prioritize planned actions with the help of a trained moderator.

Many QUERI efforts have benefited from inclusion of QUERI-relevant measures in the national VA performance measurement system (e.g., glycemic control, colorectal cancer screening). This alignment of QUERI and national VA patient care goals fosters research/clinical partnerships in support of implementing evidence-based practice. For those QUERI centers whose conditions fall outside the national performance measurement system (e.g., HIV/AIDS), alternate strategies, such as business case modelling (i.e., spreadsheet-type models summarizing operational impacts of deploying a new care model or type of practice), have anecdotally met with some success.

Identify evidence-based practice guidelines and clinical recommendations (Step #2)

Organizational attributes have come into play at Step #2 in QUERI, when established guidelines assume access to or availability of certain organizational resources to accomplish them (e.g., specialty access, equipment availability). Many guidelines do not contain recommendations that consider organizational factors. It is thus essential to begin to consider the implications of the differences between the characteristics of the health care organizations in which efficacy and effectiveness have been established vs. those in which the evidence-based practices will subsequently be applied in order to improve their reach and adoption [ 73 ].

For example, for the Colorectal Cancer QUERI, VA and the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) guidelines for colorectal cancer screening were updated with recommendations for direct colonoscopy as the screening test of choice. Implementation of evidence-based practice in these circumstances would require different approaches in VA facilities with adequate in-house gastroenterology staffing compared to those where specialty access required referral to another VA facility or to community resources to accomplish the same goal. Anecdotally, in the face of limited specialty resources, some VA facilities adapted guideline adherence policies by fostering primary care-based sigmoidoscopies. In contrast, the U.S. Public Health Service smoking cessation guidelines relied on by researchers in the Substance Use Disorders QUERI offer a more explicit roadmap that includes adaptive changes to health care settings to promote adherence, with options for actions within and outside of primary care [ 74 ]. However, even they are limited in terms of their guidance on how best to accommodate different organizational constraints.

Measure and diagnose quality/performance gaps (Step #3)

The inclusion of organizational research in Step #3 has had particular value. For example, Colorectal Cancer QUERI researchers have evaluated the organizational determinants of variations in colorectal cancer screening performance as an early step prior to designing implementation strategies [ 75 ]. They also assessed system capacity to determine how implementation strategies might need to be adapted to deal with specialty shortages or referral arrangements [ 13 ]. Therefore, organizational knowledge from Step #3 studies may be used to facilitate planning for Step #4 implementation efforts.

Several QUERI centers have capitalized on existing organizational databases, while others have collected their own QUERI-specific organizational structure and process data for these purposes. These efforts have enabled QUERI researchers to document variations in how care is organized across the system, benchmark it with other systems, elucidate organizational factors associated with adoption of guidelines and quality improvement activities, and explicitly integrate these local variations into the design and conduct of implementation approaches (Table 4 ) [ 76 – 82 ].

Implement quality improvement (QI) interventions (Step #4)

Organizational factors come into play throughout the process of developing, adapting and implementing QI strategies for implementing research findings into routine care (Table 4 ). They provide a framework for diagnosing critical local conditions; developing a general implementation strategy; creating specific accommodations for different organizational contexts; and informing the design of subsequent evaluation studies. For example, in preparing to implement evidence-based interventions, it is important to assess local needs and capacities. Such needs assessments include appraisals of organizational readiness to change and diagnosis of system barriers and facilitators to the adoption of evidence-based practice at target sites [ 13 ].

The degree to which QUERI researchers have used information about organizational variations in the design and implementation of QI interventions has varied (Table 4 ). Organizational factors sometimes informed site selection for participation in large-scale implementation studies (e.g., Mental Health QUERI) [ 77 , 83 , 84 ]. They also were used as a foundation for the accommodation of local organizational characteristics through adaptation of intervention components (i.e., addition, elimination or modification).

Few large-scale experimental trials of the effects of specific adaptations to local organizational context that may be incorporated in Step #4 implementation efforts have been conducted. Recruitment of a sufficient number of organizations with the characteristics of interest typically requires dozens of health care settings, adding to the size, expense and complexity of cluster randomized trials [ 85 ]. Therefore, adaptation or tailoring of an implementation strategy's components to local organizational context commonly occurs as extrapolations from associations identified in quantitative cross-sectional analyses – or through application of qualitative data (Table 4 ). It is important that the level of evidence supporting on-the-ground changes in implementation protocols and procedures from site-to-site be clearly described. Otherwise, our ability to evaluate their deployment of these adaptations is limited.

Evaluate quality improvement (QI) interventions (Steps #5–6)

Consideration of organizational factors should explicitly shape the evaluation methods used in Steps #5 and #6 (Table 4 ). Methods used for assessing organizational factors in these types of evaluations use multi-method techniques, commonly combining qualitative inquiry (e.g., semi-structured interviews of key informants or focus groups of providers) and quantitative data collection (e.g., through surveys of leaders, providers or patients).

Unlike the organizational variations studies described for Step #3 or the adaptation or addition of program components that address organizational context in Step #4, QUERI studies in Steps #5 and #6 explore the organizational factors associated with adoption, implementation and impacts of the targeted QI intervention (Table 4 ). These studies may be distinguished from the pre-implementation organizational research (which is chiefly cross-sectional) in that implementation researchers aim to evaluate organizational predictors of quality improvement (i.e., changes in quality post-implementation). This is related to the more action-oriented research where fewer organizational factors are controlled for and also to pragmatic randomized trials where sufficiently large samples of organizations are included to enable subgroup analyses, as with different practices. Here, organizational evaluation may be formative (i.e., iterative component of practice redesign efforts) and outcomes-oriented (e.g., cluster randomized trials of implementation strategies or new policies or procedures designed to improve care); within QUERI, these evaluation approaches co-occur [ 45 , 85 , 86 ]. They also may focus on the organizational factors associated with adoption, penetration, sustainability or spread of interventions that have already been shown to be efficacious under ideal circumstances and effective in different types of settings.

Organizational research at Steps #5–6 has focused either on explicit integration and evaluation of organizational factors within the QI strategy itself (e.g., adding organizational supports as recommended in the U.S. Institute of Medicine [IoM] report) [ 87 ], or evaluation of organizational influences on how well a QI strategy performed across intervention sites (Table 4 ). Understanding site-level effects and provider variation similarly enable refinement and improved fit of the evidence to local organizational and practice issues [ 88 – 90 ].

Several QUERI examples apply. For example, in the Substance Use Disorders (SUD) QUERI, a process evaluation of organizational barriers in a multi-state group randomized trial of evidence-based quality improvement strategies for implementing smoking cessation guidelines led to a redesign of key intervention components (Table 4 ). During the trial, qualitative evaluation of organizational processes identified patient reluctance to attend smoking cessation clinics, inconsistent provider readiness to counsel in primary care, and variable ease in referral and capacity in behavioural health sessions [ 91 ]. Quantitative surveys and analysis of the organizational factors (e.g., formulary changes, smoking cessation clinic availability) influencing smoking cessation clinic referral practices across the 18 participating sites also were conducted [ 92 , 93 ]. The new implementation strategy – deployed in a subsequent trial – replaced the need for multiple in-person counselling sessions with EMR-based referral to telephone counselling. The Mental Health QUERI has used similar methods to implement depression collaborative care in increasingly diverse practices. With a parallel focus on schizophrenia, the Mental Health QUERI also has done extensive work using EMR automated data to monitor antipsychotic prescribing as a tool for QI evaluation in different locales [ 94 ]. Each QUERI center is working through these types of organizational research issues as implementation efforts accelerate throughout the VA.

We posit that a better understanding of the organizational factors related to implementation of evidence-based practice is a critical adjunct to efforts to systematically improve quality across a system of care, especially when the evidence must be translated to increasingly diverse practice settings. Specifically, more explicit accommodation of organizational inquiry into implementation research agendas has helped QUERI researchers to better frame and extend their work as they move toward regional and national spread activities. While some QUERI researchers have used traditional or pragmatic randomized trials, they also have worked to integrate complementary evaluation methods that capture organizational attributes in ways that enable them to open the "black box" of implementation, and in turn help inform and accelerate adoption and spread of evidence-based practice in each successive wave of practices. We argue for the value of casting organizational research as one of several lenses through which implementation research may be viewed.

Systematically integrating organizational research applications into implementation research is not without its challenges. Organizational research comes with its own methodological challenges in terms of appropriate study designs, adequate statistical power at the organizational unit of analysis, and multi-level analytical issues that require attention. Integrating organizational factors into empirical research has been daunting for most researchers given the logistical difficulties and costs of working with large numbers of hospitals or practices [ 95 ]. However, even in smaller studies, it is not uncommon for researchers to describe the effectiveness of interventions, such as reminders or audit-and-feedback, without describing the organizational supports or other contextual factors influencing their success [ 3 ]. No less important, the ability to study and manipulate organizational factors is confounded by sample size requirements of traditional research designs, invoking serious limitations in the conduct of most organizational research. Measurement of organizational constructs also can be difficult and requires identifying appropriate data sources (e.g., administrative data, practice checklists, surveys) and the right respondent(s) at one or more levels of the organization as key informants, if primary data are to be collected. Just as research at the patient or provider level tends to disregard organizational factors, organizational research also should adequately account for the contribution of patient characteristics (e.g., socio-demography, health status, clinical severity, co-morbidity) and provider characteristics (e.g., knowledge, attitudes, behaviour), where possible. Unfortunately, patient-level data clustered within providers and their respective organizations are not commonly available, creating built-in limitations in the interpretability of organizational research.

While this paper focuses on the influence of internal organizational characteristics on implementation of evidence-based practice, recognition of the importance of context requires brief mention of environmental factors (i.e., characteristics external to the organization). Environmental factors, defined as characteristics external to the organization, include geography (e.g., region, state, urban/rural location), area population characteristics (e.g., population density, socio-demography, community health status), area resources (e.g., numbers of health care providers per 1,000 residents), and other relevant area characteristics (e.g., managed care penetration, regulatory environment). Such factors may influence how health care organizations are structured, though organizational factors also may serve to mediate the impact of environmental factors on care processes and patient outcomes. For example, higher primary physician-to-patient staffing ratios in rural VA facilities appear to offset local gaps in specialty access and are associated with comparable quality [ 96 ]. Not surprisingly, deployment of system interventions into urban vs. rural facilities, often dictates different organizational adaptations to account for area resources. Explicit acknowledgment and planning for these influences ahead of implementation efforts is arguably a better approach than post-hoc reactions once in the field. The key is that context matters and requires continual evaluation to determine how context may constrain or create opportunities for improving implementation [ 97 ].

The VA's investment in QUERI has helped advance knowledge about the role of organizational factors in implementation. For example, organizational size appears to operate differently for different types of QI interventions. While organizational size is a positive factor for less complex QI interventions (i.e., where slack resources may be brought to bear), medium-sized facilities appear to be more nimble when facing the challenges of implementing more complex organizational changes (e.g., introduction of a new care model). In contrast, if practices were too small, they suffered from inadequate staffing and limited local autonomy for decision-making (i.e., had to wait for direction, were not able to identify a local champion). If they were too large, they suffered organizational inertia or required more organizational supports for coordination across departments or services. These barriers were sometimes overcome with sufficient leadership support and allocation of additional resources. Organizational control of those resources also is important. In the VA, like other large health care systems, resource control was sometimes one or more levels above the practice in which the QI intervention was being implemented. This required negotiation with senior leaders with varying levels of awareness and understanding of frontline needs or culture, and repeated marketing messages to different stakeholders at each level. Control of how care was organized also was important but did not always operate in expected ways. Practice autonomy emerged as a facilitator of more rapid implementation (i.e., faster penetration among providers in a practice); however, their speed appeared to undermine sustainability. Further work is needed to validate these findings for more QUERI conditions among increasingly diverse practice settings and in organizations outside the VA. For example, do the same findings hold true for depression as they do for diabetes? Varying levels of supporting evidence were noted for many organizational structures and processes in relation to quality of implementation. While the VA is most generalizable to large health systems, including U.S. regional systems like Kaiser Permanente and national health systems, such as those in the UK and Australia [ 98 ], many of the organizational factors studied also have correlates in smaller practices.

At this juncture, QUERI implementation research studies are progressing from local to regional to national in scope [ 12 ]. In parallel, methodologically – and along the lines of the QUERI steps – they are moving from variations studies to tests of intervention and implementation effectiveness to evaluations of spread, and then to policy development [ 13 ]. It is incumbent on us to contribute to bridging the gap between research and practice by considering the potential for accelerating implementation success by explicitly addressing organizational factors in our work.

Abbreviations

Veterans Health Administration

Quality Enhancement Research Initiative

electronic medical record

Computerized Patient Records System

continuous quality improvement

quality improvement

primary care

gastrointestinal

human immunodeficiency virus.

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Acknowledgements

This work was funded by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Health Administration, VA Health Services Research & Development (HSR&D) Service through the VA Greater Los Angeles HSR&D Center of Excellence (Project #HFP 94-028), the VA HSR&D and QUERI-funded "Regional Expansion and Testing of Depression Collaborative Care" (ReTIDES) (Project # MNT 01–027), and Dr. Yano's VA HSR&D Research Career Scientist award (Project #RCS 05–195). The author also would like to acknowledge and thank the editors and reviewers for their thoughtful critiques and useful input.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

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Yano, E.M. The role of organizational research in implementing evidence-based practice: QUERI Series. Implementation Sci 3 , 29 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1186/1748-5908-3-29

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Organisational benefits of undertaking research in healthcare: an approach to uncover impact

• Judith Holliday 1 ,
• Natalie Jones 2 &
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There is increasing focus to review the societal impact of research through assessment and research excellence frameworks. These often link to financial and reputational incentives within the academic community. However, timeframes to demonstrate impact using these approaches are often long and are not designed to show benefit to service collaborators who require evidence of improvement and change to their services more immediately. Impacts that are measured this way may also miss out on unintended and positive impacts that occur as by-products of research, or through the ‘ripple effect’ that research may have on practice. Importantly, demonstrating how research makes a difference can improve the research culture in services, and motivations in service partners to become, and stay involved in research. This article describes, and provides access to, a tool called VICTOR (making V isible the I mpa CT O f R esearch) that was developed by a community of practice involving 12 NHS organisations through blending evidence from the literature, practice and service users. We describe the types of impact that have been collected by VICTOR and explore how collecting impact in this way might help research-practice partnerships and inform research methodologies and may be useful to show impacts alongside, and shortly after the research process.

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Introduction

There is increasing focus within the academic establishment to review the societal impact of research through various assessment and research excellence frameworks. These often link to financial and reputational incentives in academia, for example the research excellence framework in the UK https://www.ref.ac.uk/about/ and Excellence in Research in Australia https://www.arc.gov.au/excellence-research-australia/era-2023 ). Many governments invest in both applied and basic health research for impact and benefit. The Canadian institute for Health Research (CHIR) for example, aims to develop scientific knowledge into improved health, more effective health services and products, and an effective care system http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/37792.html . The UK based National Institute Health Research (NIHR) aims to provide health research that focuses on the needs of patients and the public [ 1 ] [ 2 ]. However, the timeframes to demonstrate impact from research findings are often very long [ 3 ], and many services want to show impact sooner than this resulting in tensions in academic- practice partnerships [ 4 ] [ 5 ]. There is emerging evidence that there are benefits for healthcare organisations to be part of research delivery in collaborations. For example, hospitals that are research active (defined in terms of linked citations in peer reviewed journals) are associated with improved mortality rates [ 6 ], and quality of care and health outcomes positively correlate with the conduct of clinical trials in NHS organisations [ 7 ]. There is also an association between research engagement of practitioners and improvements in performance and the process of care [ 8 ]. Boaz et al. [ 9 ] described these as the ‘by-products’ of research itself, but perhaps it is more than this, and may help to support motivation and engagement of services and increase collaboration with less engaged groups? There is also a growing debate that research could be more immediately beneficial to healthcare providers if conducted in a co-productive manner [ 10 ] [ 11 ] [ 12 ]. Coproduction can stimulate ‘win-win’ and mutually beneficial outcomes in the short-term [ 13 ], especially for services and service users and aids longevity of research collaborations and better reach into the healthcare system [ 14 ]. Indeed, a realist review focussing on research capacity development in health and care systems has highlighted how showing that research makes a difference can act as an important symbolic mechanism that increases research capacity and research culture in healthcare organisations [ 15 ]. Ideally these should be captured contemporaneously within the coproduction process.

Making visible the impact of conducting research in healthcare organizations: developing the VICTOR tool (making visible the ImpaCT Of research)

With this context in mind, a community of practice (CoP) that included members of Research and Development leaders in 12 NHS organisations in England completed a service development project to develop a tool that would enable the collection of case studies to uncover the immediate impact of conducting research in their organisations. This is more than a ‘by-product’ for them and contributes to quality assessment by the Care Quality Commission and establishes direct benefit to the organisation. The CoP was called ACORN (Addressing Capacity in Organisations Network) and they worked with two NIHR partnerships: The Collaboration and Leadership in Applied Health and Care for Yorkshire and Humber (CLAHRC YH) and the NIHR CRN YH.

VICTOR aimed to identify impact where it matters in the NHS, services, and people within them and to create a resource to support NHS Trusts to capture and show how applied research projects can have an impact within the organisation. Two senior NHS managers (JH and NJ) were seconded into the NIHR partnership to develop the VICTOR approach. Areas of impact were developed through collecting and organising information from a range of sources including a workshop with ACORN members to identify areas they thought were important, that made a difference to services when conducting research. The particular focus was on how undertaking research can make a difference in healthcare organisation and the wider health system.

A scoping literature review was conducted with the aim of understanding the current landscape of research impact tools and mapping out the published tools available for capturing research impact [ 16 ]. Keywords were used to systematically search the published literature to identify research, policy, and research impact tools relevant to the project. Online databases such as CINAL and Medline were iteratively searched as well as grey literature. Reports, tools and studies detailing research impact tools were exported to a reference manager so that they could be analysed. NJ and JH then screened the papers to ensure they were relevant to the project. A spreadsheet was created to list the research impact tools and extract data on the key domains of impact. NJ and JH were interested in where the research impact tools were similar, any gaps and the relevance of the tools to the NHS context.

The tools were discussed with JC. The merits of each were analysed. Findings from this review discovered gaps in the patient perspective on research impact and that many of the tools were designed for academic purposes or for contexts other than the NHS. Key tools of interest that were identified were:

Becker Medical Library Model [ 17 ].

Payback Framework [ 18 ].

Canadian Health Services Policy Research Alliance (CHSPRA) making an impact framework [ 19 .

Research Excellence Framework [ 20 .

Sarli CC, Dubinsky EK, Holmes KL. Beyond citation analysis: a model for assessment of research impact [ 21 ].

Stakeholder engagement in this project included working with ACORN which included 12 NHS organisations: three teaching hospitals; five mental health trusts; and four acute trusts. Many of these trusts also include outreach into community and public health practice. Each trust has at least two representatives in ACORN, one being a senior R&D manager, and the other a research-active or research interested practitioner. Stakeholder engagement is a powerful tool for involving those in research who have lived insights and ideas about ways to improve healthcare. [ 22 ]

Stakeholders in this project were involved in several ways:

12 ACORN NHS trusts met several times during the project to advise on progress and prototype tools.

Experts in the field were consulted about research impact domains via telephone calls.

Patient and carer representatives were consulted about prototype tools one to one and via patient research engagement groups. Feedback was also sought from a mental health charity and an older people’s charity.

Prototyping involved creating versions of the research impact tool and testing them out with stakeholders. Prototyping is a helpful way to test out a new tool in the early stages of development and design. [ 23 ]

Feedback on the prototype tools was collated by NJ and JH and used to inform the next version of the tool.

Several patient representatives tested the tool by completing the questions. They used their experiences of participation in a recent study to answer the questions. This gave the authors an understanding of whether the questions were collecting sufficient and focused information. Feedback from patient and informal carer representatives shaped the prototype tool so that the number of questions were reduced to make completing the questionnaire less onerous and the language of the tool was developed to avoid professional jargon.

In the first prototype, the domains of the tool were created by using the data extracted from the scoping review. NJ and JH extracted the key domains from other research impact tools. Information and insights from stakeholder consultation about what needed to be included in the tool were mapped onto the emerging domains. A master domain list was developed and tested out with JC and the ACORN group. Each domain had a list of criteria to define the focus for the domain for example, the ‘health benefits’ domain considers health benefits, safety and quality improvements for research participants and carers. This is that as a result of taking part in the research the participants (patient, carer or family) have improved health, a better experience of care, improved quality of life and/or more equitable access to healthcare. This domain includes the subgroups:

Health benefits such as; quality of life impacts, access to different treatments; care delivered differently; quality of information provided; health literacy; providing the same quality of care for a reduced cost.

Experience; during the study, were there any changes made to patient care that improved the experience of care for participants, carers or family as part of / as a result of being in the study for example information giving, carer support, carer interventions; health literacy.)

Patient safety; are there any examples of improved governance and/or safety for patients taking part in the study? This would include improvements to quality of research in terms of scientific quality, standards of ethics and related management aspects – set up, conduct, reporting and progression towards healthcare improvements.

Social capital; are participants / carers better connected or part of any new networks as a result of taking part in the research? This includes self-help groups, increased social networks or activities.

By socialising the draft domains we were able to gauge if there were any gaps, duplications, or areas of impact that might have been missed. Feedback shaped version 2 of the list of domains, criteria and prompts which were then used to create questions relevant to the domain criteria. Open questions were developed to elicit information from the research team members or patients [ 24 ].

The resulting areas of impact are given in Table  1 . There were six general domains of impact, with subgroups within each domain.

This framework was then used to develop a questionnaire that was modified and adapted based on two rounds of piloting within the ACORN organisations. A final VICTOR questionnaire was developed that includes 26 questions organised in six sections reflecting the impact domains and domain subgroups described in Table  1 . A Tool of four questions was developed for patients and members of the public based on consulting with service user groups. The VICTOR tool can be accessed https://www.e-repository.clahrc-yh.nihr.ac.uk/visible-impact-of-research/ )

As a service evaluation, the project does not require ethical approval through HRA however this project was conducted with the rigour and safeguards of research to protect participants’ data. The service evaluation was registered with the author’s organisation (STH) clinical effectiveness unit. Efforts were made to ensure that this project adhered to best practice guidance for service evaluation practice [ 25 ]. Consent to participate in the stakeholder consultations was through explicit verbal or written consent. Those agreeing to view the prototype tool and provide feedback were aware that their feedback data would be used in project reports and dissemination, and all data would be anonymised.

Uncovering impact: feedback from ACORN trusts through using the tool

Trusts who piloted the VICTOR tool shared their summary documents with the ACORN CoP. Many trusts reported that VICTOR had been helpful in identifying unanticipated and ‘hidden’ impacts of research, and documented changes that would otherwise have been overlooked, or not linked to research activity.

The impacts frequently cited in the pilot sites included service and workforce changes, research capacity building, and health and experiential impacts of patients and carers. Intervention studies often, but not exclusively, produced changes in workforce and services. For example, practitioners who received training as part of developing skills for new interventions frequently highlight how these skills were used in their practice more generally after the research project. These can be diverse skills, like paramedics developing better airway management techniques, or community nurses using cognitive behavioural therapy with patients who have long term conditions. Sometimes elements of the research method were then incorporated into clinical pathways, for example using screening questionnaires in radiography services, or use of autophotography in mental healthcare, where patients use photographs to express their world view or how they feel. The advantages of using such techniques were demonstrated in the research delivery and continued into everyday practice.

Many examples of impact on working practice in the healthcare system were established because of working together on a research project, for example between pharmacy and a clinical area, or between primary and secondary care. These continued to benefit the services after the research had been completed. Such stories were very insightful and meaningful to practitioners and managers, and were able to promote research in the organisation and wider community, for example in newsletters and press releases. Importantly, some patients described impacts that were not mentioned by research teams who were delivering projects, for example patients felt they were closely monitored, felt that they were making a difference, but they also had a contact person, usually the research nurse, who provided support and information about care and services. The process of collecting the information through VICTOR sometimes helped internal cohesion. Informal feedback was collected from the individuals or research teams (collated by NJ and JH) testing out the prototype tools. This suggests that using the VICTOR tool as a team facilitated reflexivity and team thinking about the benefits of the research project, and enabled teams to reflect on the successes of research together. One participant remarked “ Teams don’t usually get together after a research project ends, everyone is getting on with the next project, so it was nice to take some time together and reflect on the project”.

Another participant comments on the value of the team coming together to collaborate and completing the tool “ We collaborated across a pathway of care, medical, therapy and nursing staff, we would not normally get together to discuss the research, this was helpful as we could discuss changes and improvements in our systems and processes, applying the learning from the study”.

This strengthened relationships between research and clinical teams by recognising and documenting shared achievements and strengthened the partnerships with researchers. The process also enabled increased awareness of each other’s role and to share their views of impact.

During the prototyping notes of informal feedback suggested that it was more difficult than anticipated for the PI or research coordinator to track down members of the research team to ask them to complete a VICTOR questionnaire. This suggests that doing the feedback directly after the project was concluded could make it easier to gain feedback however this could potentially miss impacts that occur after the study 3–6 months after the project has been completed.

Outlook and conclusion

The VICTOR tool can help to describe the impact of conducting research in healthcare organisations, and it offers fertile ground for further work and debate on its wider influence. The logic for VICTOR’s development was that by uncovering impact of undertaking research ‘close to practice’, it could show immediate usefulness to clinicians, managers and patients, and stimulate a research culture, triggering a mechanism for change [ 26 ]. A report on enabling staff to do research in NHS organisations [ 27 ] highlights that feedback on research impact is an enabler to promote a research culture and encourages positive attitudes and values towards research. This may well be more beneficial in in supporting research collaborations within the wider ‘research ecosystem’, particularly in social and community care, where research capacity in needed and where immediate benefits are important and practical benefits realised [ 28 ].

There is a growing body of support and funding for long term research and practice collaborations such as the CLAHRCs in England, and the Hunter New England Population health research-practice partnerships [ 29 ]. These partnerships provide an opportunity to produce co-benefits to the researchers but currently there is not systematic evidence of how to identify immediate benefits to service partners [ 30 ] including methods to capture the intended and unintended outcomes that are context dependant [ 31 ]. VICTOR could provide a basis for this. It is argued that impact should be recognised in the eyes of the end- user and be tailored to context of where impact should occur [ 32 ] [ 33 ] and certainly we have found that hidden benefits have been uncovered through using the tool. The timeframe for VICTOR is undertaken contemporaneously, or shortly after the research and so shows immediate benefit that complements with more longer-term impacts of research collected in the academic research assessment frameworks.

VICTOR also has the potential to determine which research methods and methodologies are valuable to different care provider partners, and help to assess impact and different models of conducting research [ 30 ] [ 29 ]. Context, for example where coproduction in research is used can influence both process and outcomes [ 5 ]. VICTOR has found both stages in research can have a positive and ‘rippled effect’ on service provider organisations further down the pathways to impact and this has also been found by others [ 34 ]. Such a body of accumulated knowledge through VICTOR use might help to inform coproduction partnerships providing win-win scenarios linked to process as well as outcomes in research.

We acknowledge that this tool was coproduced with managers, practitioners, and service users in the NHS, which is both a strength and a limitation. It certainly was reported to be useful to the ACORN group and it has been downloaded by hundreds of healthcare organisations. However, it would be beneficial to see if it is useful across the health and care system, or in other countries. There may well be cultural differences in terms of benefit. This calls for more internationally work and comparison and incorporating tools like VICTOR into the research process itself. The optimum timeframe for completing VICTOR was not explored during this evaluation. We hope that by sharing our experience and access to VICTOR we can establish transferability and open dialogue with other partners and provide opportunities to explore mechanisms of impact of research in healthcare organisations.

Post development note.

The VICTOR tool and process was made available at https://hseresearch.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/VICTOR-pack.pdf#:~:text=VICTOR%20enables%20engagement%20with%20research%20participants%2C%20professionals%2C%20managers,and%20help%20plan%20for%20improved%20impact%20in%20future . in Feb 2019 and to date 200 organisations have requested a pack. A web based version has been developed and is available at https://sites.google.com/nihr.ac.uk/victor/home and https://victorimpacttool.net/ . For further information on accessing the online tool please contact [email protected]

Data Availability

Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.

Abbreviations

National Institute Health Research

Department of Health

Department of Health and Social Care

Making Visible the ImpaCT Of Research

Community of Practice

Addressing Capacity in Organisations to do Research Network

Applied Health and Care for Yorkshire and Humber

Clinical Research Network Yorkshire and Humber

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to the ACORN group for piloting and using the VICTOR tool.

Funding for the development of the tool was provided by NIHR YH CRN and NIHR CLAHRC both hosted by Sheffield Teaching Hospitals Trust.

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Ethical approval was not required as this is a service improvement project, registered at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals Trust.

This project was registered with Sheffield Teaching Hospitals FT Trust as a service evaluation project with the clinical effectiveness unit (CEU) project number 8952 on electronic database AIMS and all methods were carried out in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations. The project is titled ‘VICTOR- Making Visible the Impact of Research in the NHS: developing a research impact tool for clinicians.’ Natalie Jones was listed as the project lead. The sample period was 17/09/2017–07/01/2019 and the data collection period was 08/01/2018–31/12/2018. All participants in the evaluation gave informed consent to participate. They were provided with information about the project in writing and /or verbally. They had an opportunity to think about participation and whether they would like to take part before consent was taken. Findings from participants were anonymised to protect confidentiality. All relevant procedures for service evaluations in Sheffield Teaching Hospitals were adhered to and the project was supported by a co-ordinator from the clinical effectiveness unit to ensure relevant procedures were followed.

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Holliday, J., Jones, N. & Cooke, J. Organisational benefits of undertaking research in healthcare: an approach to uncover impact. BMC Res Notes 16 , 255 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13104-023-06526-5

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Internationalizing the Curriculum in Organizational Psychology pp 307–329 Cite as

Doing Research in International Organizations

• Allen I. Kraut 4  
• First Online: 26 November 2013

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This chapter describes the difficulties of doing research in international organizations, along with ways to understand and overcome these special hardships. Written by a renowned international researcher with experience in IBM and working with several global organizations, Allen I. Kraut shares many of the experiences he has had and observed. He notes that the major issues in doing such research are based on cultural differences and the related difficulty of communicating with others who may be part of the work effort or work team.

A framework to view culture is described using Hofstede’s cultural dimensions. Examples are offered of how the process of international research can be more complex than working solely in one’s home country. For example, different assumptions about proper inequality in a society (power distance i.e.,) may make some people reluctant to offer any negative feedback to a superior about a research flaw, even if that was desirable. Other people may seem overly critical when they think they are simply being frank.

Major cross-cultural studies are reviewed to show the countries that cluster together, based on similar cultures. This knowledge can make it easier to anticipate the amount of cultural divergence a researcher can expect to work with.

Difficulties in international research are also likely to arise because of faulty communication. This happens primarily when not all colleagues are native speakers of the same language. In some settings, where English may be everyone’s second language, the chances for misunderstandings are increased. Aids to better communication include reflective listening and allowing more time and more interaction among co-workers, especially when they are part of a work team that is virtual and global.

The chapter offers examples of how international researchers have been successful in doing research and applying their work. The examples cover employee opinion surveys, global selection systems, and human resource management. The chapter concludes with an appendix of useful resources for teaching and understanding cultural differences among nations through the use of the Internet, movies and other books.

• Collectivism–individualism
• Communications
• Country clusters
• Cultural dimensions
• Global teams
• International research
• Virtual teams
• Power distance

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In the spirit of full disclosure, I note that Geert Hofstede was a close colleague at IBM while collecting his initial survey data.

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Chapter Appendix—Useful Sources for Cultural Information

For Americans to get a better understanding of American culture, a quick way to start would be to travel out of the USA. A new awareness based on travel experiences would probably prove true for most people in other countries as well. Fortunately, there are less expensive alternatives (and supplements) to actual travel. These methods include talking to people who have been in other countries about their experiences, watching movies from and about other countries, reading books set in other lands, and learning from studies specifically focused on national cultures. Some specific and useful sources are described below.

The web is a major asset in learning about country cultures. A website called culturecrossing.net is a fabulous resource for learning about appropriate everyday behavior in most countries around the world. The site describes proper greetings, eye contact, use of personal space, and touching, as well as taboos and also covers topics like meetings, negotiations, and even gift giving. There are also special sections for students and business people. This site also offers links to a variety of short and interesting (if somewhat uneven) videos that can be the basis for orienting and training members of a research team.

Not surprisingly, Google and other web search engines will give researchers fascinating information, by searching for a combination of “culture” and “country name.” Wikipedia and other data sources can be most helpful. Hofstede has created a website to give culture dimension scores and some explanation for more than 80 countries. (See http://geert-hofstede.com/countries.html .) Sites such as everyculture.com and also a “fact book” by the US Central Intelligence Agency (see http://ciaworldfactbook.us/countries ) offer good factual descriptions of most countries’ history, geography, politics, population, holidays, and culture Footnote 3 .

An appealing way to appreciate another culture is to see it come to life in a movie. For example, a recent film called “Outsourced” starring Larry Pine tells the story of an executive whose US call center is shut down and he goes to India to train his replacement. He encounters vast cultural differences in every aspect of his business and personal life. Such movies are often easily available on DVD or via streaming websites such as Netflix.

A number of other useful films come to mind, such as “Gung Ho,” the comedy with Michael Keaton, that has a Japanese firm re-opening an American auto plant, and introducing its own cultural traditions, like morning calisthenics and company singing. Other films, such as “Lost in Translation” with Bill Murray, show the travails of an American executive doing business in Tokyo. Such films may not always be relied on for accurate profiles of culture, but may provoke worthwhile interest and discussions.

Cultural Etiquette

A valuable, perhaps surprising, resource for dealing with other countries comes from a former White House social secretary, Leticia Baldrige, who has written a book on business etiquette (Baldrige 1993 ). It includes many topics that are important to effective I–O research in international organizations when it involves interacting with people from other countries. The book covers behaviors and attitudes on punctuality, dress, the acceptance of women, dining, and even the appropriate time to open a gift, which varies by country. Hand gestures that are innocent in one nation can take on offensive meaning elsewhere. Showing the soles of one’s shoes to another, or handing over an object with the left hand (sometimes associated with toilet paper) can be an insult. Researchers can read Ms. Baldrige’s book, New Complete Guide to Executive Manners as a checklist of cultural differences, both striking and subtle, from one’s own country. Her chapter on Doing Business Internationally is especially relevant to our efforts, as it covers topics like meetings, social customs, and gift giving. Of special note might be the section titled “American habits that displease people from other countries.” Among other things, she warns against teasing about sacred matters, even in jest.

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Kraut, A. (2014). Doing Research in International Organizations. In: Griffith, R., Thompson, L., Armon, B. (eds) Internationalizing the Curriculum in Organizational Psychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9402-7_14

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Research Roundup: How the Pandemic Changed Management

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Lessons from 69 articles published in top management and applied psychology journals.

Researchers recently reviewed 69 articles focused on the management implications of the Covid-19 pandemic that were published between March 2020 and July 2023 in top journals in management and applied psychology. The review highlights the numerous ways in which employees, teams, leaders, organizations, and societies were impacted and offers lessons for managing through future pandemics or other events of mass disruption.

The recent pandemic disrupted life as we know it, including for employees and organizations around the world. To understand such changes, we recently reviewed 69 articles focused on the management implications of the Covid-19 pandemic. These papers were published between March 2020 and July 2023 in top journals in management and applied psychology.

• Mark C. Bolino is the David L. Boren Professor and the Michael F. Price Chair in International Business at the University of Oklahoma’s Price College of Business. His research focuses on understanding how an organization can inspire its employees to go the extra mile without compromising their personal well-being.
• JW Jacob M. Whitney is a doctoral candidate in management at the University of Oklahoma’s Price College of Business and an incoming assistant professor at Kennesaw State University. His research interests include leadership, teams, and organizational citizenship behavior.
• SH Sarah E. Henry is a doctoral candidate in management at the University of Oklahoma’s Price College of Business and an incoming assistant professor at the University of South Florida. Her research interests include organizational citizenship behaviors, workplace interpersonal dynamics, and international management.

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Role of Communication Strategies in Organizational Commitment, Mediating Role of Faculty Engagement: Evidence From English Language Teachers

Associated data.

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author/s.

Employees are critical stakeholders for an organization because they directly deal with the end-users and represent the entire firm. To recognize the strategic importance of the employees, organizations create communication programs to keep employees apprised of organizational issues. In this regard, this study examined the role of communication strategies (i.e., information flow, information adequacy, and information feedback) on organizational commitment. The study also investigated the mediating effect of faculty engagement between communication strategies and organizational commitment. Self-administered survey aided in acquiring data from 276 English language teachers in China. The analysis of the data was conducted using SmartPLS through the Structured Equation Modeling technique. The outcome of the study demonstrated that information flow and information feedback significantly impact organizational commitment and faculty engagement. The analysis also revealed that information adequacy significantly impacts organizational commitment but has no relationship with faculty engagement. The mediation analysis demonstrated that faculty engagement mediated the relationship between information flow and organizational commitment and between information feedback and organization commitment. However, faculty engagement did not mediate the relationship between information adequacy and organizational commitment among English language teachers in China. In theoretical terms, the study contributed in terms of incorporating different communication strategies and examining their effect on organizational commitment and faculty engagement. In practical terms, this study would be beneficial for the management of the educational institutes to develop different ways of enhancing communication strategies within the institute. This study also provided directions for the future, for example, conducting the study on other subject teachers, increasing the sample, carrying out the research in a different context, and adding different mediators and moderators in the existing model.

Introduction

Faculty members have several important obligations toward their organizations. They are important stakeholders of organizations due to their professional positions and capacity to impact outsiders (Kim and Rhee, 2011 ). Further, they noticed that educational institutions now realize the strategic importance of teachers for enhancing the performance of the institution. Therefore, these organizations develop systematic communication programs to keep them informed about the organizational issues. These communication programs consist of managers, supervisors, administrators, and internal communication teams (Rhee and Moon, 2009 ). The importance of faculty members is quite similar to employees of any organization. So, when organizations provide effective internal communication to employees about the organizational goals, they are more likely to work hard. Such employees advocate for the organization to everyone else and establish a strong relationship with the organization (Mishra et al., 2014 ).

Faculty members are the most valuable asset of an institution because they have an important role in maintaining sustainability. Their functionality is varied across different institutions. Therefore, it becomes difficult to manage their roles appropriately. Some faculty members are more devoted, and they try to deliver more than what is required by their employer organizations. This devotion of faculty members enhances their work engagement which defines the significance of their roles in academic performance. So, why do some faculty members get more involved in the institution's operations? In the literature on organizational behavior and management, “organizational commitment” seems widely used. According to a research, faculty opinions toward their institution significantly impact their commitment (Jing and Zhang, 2014 ). Organizational commitment is a behavioral disposition that refers to an individual's willingness to remain employed. It motivates the employees to become high performers. It also leads to put up maximum effort in the company's best interests (Lovakov, 2016 ). According to studies, one of the most important determinants of the additional activities of faculty members is organizational commitment (Lovakov, 2016 ). Professionals who are prominently committed to the organization consider the work in a more favorable dimension. They desire to stay employed in the company, and are much more satisfied with their work. It is assumed that a committed employee is a good fighter for the organization (Lawrence et al., 2012 ). There are many factors which help in strengthening the commitment of employees with organization. Effective communication is one of these factors at organizational level.

Professional communication is acknowledged as a subset of organizational communication. It is vital for shaping employee-organization ties (in this case, faculty–organization interactions). It is also important for boosting workplace productivity (Men, 2014 ). The relationship development initiatives at organizational level such as communication efforts may result in two critical outcomes. These include job engagement and organizational commitment (Mishra et al., 2014 ). Employee engagement (faculty engagement in this study) is better described as a pleasant and rewarding state of mind which relates to commitment, vitality, and immersion at work (Schaufeli et al., 2006 ). Such engagement is all about getting involved in work at hand and feeling energized by it. Based on trust and fulfillment criteria, commitment is one of the most commonly cited factors of faculty–organization relationship quality in public relations (Men, 2014 ). A research implies that engagement's role in faculty–organization relationships is understudied (Saks, 2019 ). This is a shortcoming, because job engagement has been shown to be a determinant of long-term organizational commitment in studies (Saks, 2019 ). It is also critical to study faculty engagement to comprehend that what may drive organizational commitment in educational institutions (Harrison et al., 2017 ).

Human capital having lots of energy, effectiveness, and commitment are required to achieve competitive edge in the modern world. Several organizations are well aware that engagement and commitment are crucial to their competitiveness. Faculty members also have the responsibility to keep their organizations competitive. So, they are anticipated to have high levels of professional motivation, dedication, and job engagement. Disengaged teachers are upset and unsatisfied with their employment. Therefore, they underperform and have an adverse influence on their coworkers' efforts in the organizations. On the contrary, engaged faculty members are wholly devoted, committed, and determined to their work. An engaged staff can boost an organization's competitive advantage (Harrison et al., 2017 ). Effective communication is one of the important tasks of all academic, profit, and non-profit organizations. A growing body of research on higher education institutions have found that communication is critical for molding work attitudes and organizational productivity. It strengthens an organization's vision, activities, and procedures. It also helps in accelerating organizational improvements (Keyton, 2017 ). Communication is dependent on the possibilities of interaction and relationship development. It provides stimulation for professional and personal relationships through a variety of organizational communication methods (Murphy, 2015 ). During the recent years, it is observed that much attention has been paid to the enthusiasm and prestige of teachers in educational institutions. On the other hand, communication attribute has been neglected. Therefore, consideration to communication is critical for higher education, both in terms of success and efficacy (Avotra et al., 2021 ; Yingfei et al., 2021 ).

Communication at the organizational level is the process by which people share information relevant to the organization strategy, activities, and processes (Samson, 2018 ). Lateral communication refers to communication of data at the same level. Vertical communication refers to distribution of information either upward or downward between different positions in the organization. Both types of communications are accomplished through official or unstructured communication channels. It is important to provide a platform of communication to employees and supervisors for maintaining organizational activities. It may help in effective communication between the workers operating in different departments at various levels (Hee et al., 2019 ). According to a researcher, communication has two components at organizational level. The first is the content or the information which is communicated. The flow of information or “how information is shared inside an organization” is the other factor to consider. The flow of communication is a facet of the broader notion of psychological climate. It refers to an employee's interpretations of communication at work (Smidts et al., 2001 , p. 1059). To measure communication content in organizational communication, the categories such as access to information, information adequacy, company information, and feedback are developed (Downs and Hazen, 1977 ; Goldhaber and Krivonos, 1977 ).

The demand for interaction, confidence in seniors, and communication linkages described by Roberts and O'Reilly ( 1974 ) are concerned with how information is shared in organizations. According to Hargie ( 2009 ), the function of internal communications is shifting through one to two-way communications. One-way communication is largely concerned with regulating employee conduct to assure adherence to work. It is also associated with dissemination of the previously decided choices without participation of workers. Two-way conversation at organizational level is defined as workers' participation and involvement in decision making practice. According to Hargie ( 2009 ), one-way communication indicates an asymmetrical point of view, while two-way communication reflects a harmonious viewpoint. To summarize different levels of communication strategies, several people place a strong emphasis on the informational side of organizational communication. Some place an emphasis on the environment when it comes to workplace communication. Internal communication tactics may reflect different organizational viewpoints. In terms of communication strategies for teaching English language by the faculty, authors divided these in three elements. These strategies include information flow, information adequacy, and information feedback. Previously, role of information flow and information adequacy have been explored in general perspective of organizational commitment (Walden et al., 2017 ). Researchers did not explore the impact of these communication strategies along with the feedback of information on faculty engagement and organizational commitment.

To fill this gap, authors tried to explore the impact of information flow, information adequacy, and information feedback suggested by Walden et al. ( 2017 ) on faculty engagement leading to the organizational commitment in educational institutions of English teaching. This study is based on certain questions such as what are the possible relationships between information flow, adequacy, and feedback with organizational commitment of faculty members. This study also tries to find out the mediating role of faculty engagement between these relationships instead of job or work engagement of the employees of the organizations as suggested by Walden et al. ( 2017 ). The results of this study give directions regarding internal communication strategies and their role in achieving organizational commitment of faculty members.

Theoretical Underpinning

This study is inspired by relationship management theory by Ledingham ( 2003 ) and the public relations literature on faculty–organizational relationships. Cultural and societal roots, relationship development tactics, communications, and outcomes of interactions make up the relationships (Men, 2014 ). The relationships, hence developed, are the changeable outcomes of interactions between an organization and the various organizational and the outside groups (Ledingham, 2003 ). This seems to be true for different users and faculty–organization relationships administration, in which the organization increasingly builds and strives to keep connections with the faculty throughout the times. The conventional notion of integration of employees within organizations is related to this relationship viewpoint (Zerfass et al., 2018 ). The faculty relationships are more likely to be open, trusting, and credible when educational institutions implement faculty-centered communication tactics and develop an internal climate based on collaboration with instructors and staff (Zerfass et al., 2018 ). According to research, the quality of the faculty–organization relationship is related to the efforts of organizations to create ties with teachers and employees. The faculty perspectives on the quality of the faculty–organization connection are favorably predicted by the integration of faculty members in the organization. Furthermore, the faculty perceptions of the faculty–organization interaction are favorably associated with transformational leadership style (Men, 2014 ).

Information flow, interaction cooperativeness, and information adequacy are investigated as the components of internal communication and predictor variables of relationship management effects in this study. Interaction cooperativeness considers faculty getting about the content of communication on individual and organizational issues, while information adequacy considers faculty views about the content of communication on individual and organizational issues. Investigating faculty engagement as a prospective relationship result is one strategy to enhance relationship management theory in the context of faculty–organization connections (Walden et al., 2017 ). Faculty engagement ought to be a logical byproduct of strategic communication, according to Ruck and Welch's ( 2012 ) evaluations of the literature. Although the current empirical studies on the engagement framework consider that engagement has yet to be incorporated into the faculty–organization relationship paradigm (Mishra et al., 2014 ). Authors introduce faculty engagement as a particular type of engagement in the current framework to progress this theory. The relationship management theory has also previously provided basis for the relationships among employees through communication strategies Walden et al. ( 2017 ) which suggested that it could also be utilized as a foundational stone in our research. This study tries to find possible impact of communication strategies among faculty members to achieve organizational commitment.

This study also got a support from the theories of organizational commitment including behavioral commitment theory, transactional commitment theory, obligatory commitment theory, and attitudinal commitment theory (Becker, 1960 ). Theories that use an attitudinal concept of commitment emphasize on an individual's desire to stay in an organization. According to this hypothesis, an individual's commitment to an organization was likely influenced by emotions of cohesion or connection with that group (Meyer, 1984 ). With the help of this theory, it is assumed that faculty engagement is a behavioral aspect which may lead to their commitment with the organization. Therefore, this theory provides a foundational basis of organizational commitment by the faculty members.

Communication Strategies and Faculty Engagement

According to the analysis of the literature, the level of employee engagement (faculty engagement in this case) first gained traction as a topic of substantial scientific investigation with Kahn's ( 1990 ) research. Kahn's ( 1990 ) research characterized engagement as the presentation of someone's identity via job behaviors which encourage commitment to work. Work engagement, on the other hand, has been the topic of discussion since Kahn ( 1990 ) stated this definition as to what it genuinely comprises. The argument includes whether work engagement differs from other ideas such as organizational satisfaction and commitment, and what exactly employees are involved with at work. “Being dedicated to an organization is different than being engaged to the activities done within it”, it is also wise to note (Vecina et al., 2013 , p. 293). According to studies, there is a difference between work engagement (the subject of this study) with organizational engagement, that is, a type of organizational commitment. To distinguish the concept of job engagement from that of organizational commitment, authors employ the label job engagement of faculty in this study. Job engagement entails a task orientation as well as one's work position. Job engagement is a psychological condition which workers perceive (similar to flow and also being taken away for work), so it describes whether people engage with their employment or not (Saks, 2019 ). Organizational commitment, on the other hand, is an emotional tie to the organization that includes cost concerns and a social obligation to the organization (Meyer, 1984 ).

A prospective study has demonstrated that more engaged and determined people with their occupations have the probability to keep ties with their employers for long. It demonstrates strong organizational commitment (Lesener et al., 2019 ). However, there are some similarities between work engagement and organizational commitment, they are not the same. Faculty members' job engagement is defined as their engagement with activities, passion for jobs, and ability to work effectively. Engagement is made up of some of the following elements: Vigor, commitment, and assimilation. At job, vigor entails a high degree of energy and mental fortitude, a determination to put effort into one's task, and perseverance in the face of adversity (Schaufeli et al., 2006 ). The feeling of importance, passion, motivation, dignity, and struggle are all characteristics of commitment. When somebody is entirely attentive and pleasantly immersed in their task, assimilation happens, and time passes swiftly (Schaufeli et al., 2006 ). Engagement is a psychological condition which lasts longer and therefore is separate from many other conceptions such as organizational commitment (Saks, 2019 ). Work engagement is defined in this study as a condition of absorption in working in which faculty members show passion for accomplishing a specialized job while retaining a strong emotional attachment to their job position.

When faculty members obtain resources and support from their organization, some of them feel obligated to reciprocate it by immersing themselves deeper wholeheartedly in their roles (Saks, 2019 ). Faculty members can absorb themselves into the day-to-day activities and experience a sense of belongingness with this support. When faculty members believe their organization and supervisors support them, they experience work and job-related engagement (Schaufeli et al., 2006 ). According to Ruck and Welch ( 2012 ), organizations must meet the following six requirements to engender the behaviors associated with engagement: simply stating the employee's role in an organization, assisting the employee in identifying with the organization, making sure workers feel that they have organizational support, providing information that assists employees in understanding corporate goals and strategy.

Educational organizations should evaluate information flow, adequacy of the information, feedback of the information, and interactive support as characters of communication which are likely to lead to work engagement when interacting with staff and faculty members. Such factors measure how faculty members perceive the access of work and relevant information about the organization, and they handle the common layers of communication inside organizations (organization to faculty and manager to faculty) (Rhee and Moon, 2009 ). The open interchange of ideas, topics, and views through an organization's vertical and horizontal networks is referred to as information flow. Employees' perceptions of information adequacy are defined as their belief that they are obtaining the quantity of knowledge needed to execute their tasks in the short term and make long-term decisions regarding their employment (Robertson, 2005 ; Rawlins, 2008 ). The organizational environment and mechanism of relaying information to employees are the focus of information flow and information adequacy, whereas the content of communication in organizations is the focus of information feedback (Robertson, 2005 ; Rhee and Moon, 2009 ). Faculty members and students in educational institutions frequently seek feedback from colleagues and mentorship. Having these points considered, it appears that faculty members may agree with Robertson's ( 2005 ) and Rawlins's ( 2008 ) notions about information flow within organizations, assuming that organizations should allow the open interchange of information and ideas at work. When faculty encounters high-quality information flow at work, it is expected that they will show evidence of engagement. So, this study proposed the hypothesis about this kind of possible relationship:

H 1 : Information flow plays a role in faculty engagement .

Furthermore, informational adequacy involves giving faculty members with an appropriate amount of communication on important issues so that they would perform successfully at workplace. Smidts et al. ( 2001 ) shared similar viewpoint, claiming that organizational communication among employees consisted of delivering information well about organization and the employee individually. Performing one's everyday work as a faculty member necessitates frequent updates from bosses on personal and individual difficulties (Hartman and McCambridge, 2011 ). As a result, faculty members' inclination for effective communication shows a need to obtain constant updates on the organization's achievements, objectives, as well as how their specific function is evaluated by the organization. It appears like faculty members who work for organizations that have a lot of knowledge should be more engaged. Similarly, feedback of information would also keep the faculty members engaged to their tasks so the following hypotheses were proposed:

H 3 : information adequacy plays a role in faculty engagement .

H 5 : information feedback plays a role in student engagement .

In conclusion, flow of information, adequacy of the information, and information feedback are the three levels of communication that are often discussed inside organizations, because they represent the substance and organizational strategy of employee communication. Authors expect faculty members to be involved with the work if they believe that their organization is backing them and engaging with them. Therefore, this communication must be very pertinent to them.

Communication Strategies, Engagement, and Organizational Commitment

Faculty engagement, as previously said, is a psychological condition in which faculty members are fully immersed in their work responsibilities and role performance at the workplace. Organizational commitment contrasts with work engagement in that it refers to a person's mindset and attachment to their company, whereas employee engagement focuses on work absorption. Organizations must encourage as well as provide knowledge assets to employees regarding job engagement. It helps them to emerge above the other faculty members (Saks, 2019 ). In this setting, faculty engagement is the result of an organization's efforts to foster beneficial relationships with its employees.

Furthermore, studies on faculty–organization interactions indicates that providing particular information about faculty status within the organization as well as specific task feedback might improve connections (Karanges et al., 2015 ; Wang et al., 2019 ). Organizations' relationship development efforts, in particular, produce a significant amount of commitment. The amount to which other party thinks the interaction is worth investing time and effort to preserve and promote, could be characterized as organizational commitment (Kim et al., 2019 ). Commitment, in the viewpoint of the faculty, is a long-term desire to stay connected to the company as well as a pleasant feelings disposition toward their workplace. Staff employees receiving assistance from their employer are obliged to put everything into their employment, which causes them to feel more devoted to the company. An urge to continue one's affiliation with an organization is influenced by his work experiences. So, commitment emerges as a result of workplace experiences that are aligned with staff values and meet staff's needs (Albdour and Ikhlas, 2014 ). Scholars should pay attention to the link between workplace contact with faculty members and organizational commitment. Faculty members frequently request assistance from their superiors and desire unrestricted accessibility to information about their organization's future. According to industry research, educational institution teachers have become less burdened and more likely to desire career security than other professions (Singh and Maini, 2021 ).

Employees' commitment to their organization is strengthened by open communication, which reduces the possibility that they may explore for other employment prospects beyond their organization (Sadia et al., 2016 ). This is especially essential for young faculty members. Organizations are significant contributors in improving how individuals of this faculty view their connection with their employers by satisfying the communication demands of young faculty. Work- and job-centered faculty engagement promotes organizational commitment between both academics and staff, according to research (Xie and Derakhshan, 2021 ). Tomietto et al. ( 2019 ) model of job engagement also said that communications and assistance have an impact on employee engagement. Given their workplace communication choices, these challenges of job engagement appear to be particularly pertinent to young faculty. All these arguments suggested the following hypothesis.

H 2 : Information flow plays a role in organizational commitment .

H 4 : Information adequacy plays a role in organizational commitment .

H 6 : Information feedback plays a role in organizational commitment .

H 7 : Faculty engagement plays a role in organizational commitment .

Mediating Role of Faculty Engagement

Humanistic approach emphasizes a person's quantifiable, dynamic working, predictable qualities, and emotional capability, rather than workplace negatives such as exhaustion, disagreement, and job discontent. As a result, educational institutions are now looking for faculty who are energetic, dedicated, and focused, i.e., persons who are enthusiastic and engaged with their profession because such faculty members are more efficient and imaginative when they devote their skills and experience to the organization (Minghui et al., 2018 ). The term “faculty engagement” refers to a pleasant and rewarding emotional state regarding work that is characterized by enthusiasm, determination, and absorption. According to a previous study, the most important aspects of faculty engagement are commitment and vigor (Taris et al., 2017 ).

Faculty members in educational institutions with greater levels of vigor and passion discover a variety of approaches to address working requirements and barriers while maintaining health and wellbeing. Furthermore, the immersion component, that relates to entire focus on a task, is commonly described by the progression of time or even the trouble of disconnecting himself from someone's activity (Ojo et al., 2021 ). According to Burić and Macuka ( 2018 ), vigor relates to the tangible strength of the mind or body while working; dedication refers to the doer's emotional state, in which he or she is enthusiastic about work; and absorption refers to a cognitive situation in which the individual is completely absorbed in a task.

The pleasant and fascinating inspiration which teachers demonstrate in accomplishing their performance targets while feeling totally engaged and committed in performing their job obligations are crucial qualities to clarify job engagement (Wood et al., 2020 ). Since a prior study demonstrated statistically meaningful and favorable correlations between teacher work engagement and student achievement, teachers' job engagement can be considered crucial in terms of overall school success. Teacher engagement, according to scholars, is one of the indicators of student engagement (Keay, 2018 ; Butakor et al., 2021 ). Teachers that are engaged go above and beyond their formal tasks and duties to support their students intellectually using a variety of ways and strategies, resulting in improved academic achievement (Sugianingrat et al., 2019 ). Hence, the significant role of faculty engagement and the literature discussed in the previous sections, suggested the following role of faculty engagement. Figure 1 shows the bonding of the previous literature and the study module of hypothesis framework.

Theoretical framework.

H 8 : Faculty engagement mediates the relationship of information flow and organizational commitment .

H 9 : Faculty engagement mediates the relationship of information adequacy and organizational commitment .

H 10 : Faculty engagement mediates the relationship of information feedback and organizational commitment .

Methodology

The hypotheses of the study were developed to analyze the impact of information flow, information adequacy, and information feedback on organizational commitment with the mediation of faculty engagement. The study used a deductive approach and a quantitative research design to test the hypotheses of the study (Nawaz et al., 2022 ). The hypotheses helped the researcher to investigate the impact of independent variables on dependent variables. The reliability of the study was ensured using a quantitative research design because this design helps to reduce the biases in the study. The questionnaire survey was clear and precise to ensure data rationality. The target population of this study was English language teachers in China. The sample from the entire population was chalked out using the non-probability purposive sampling method. This method saves the resources as the data is collected from readily available respondents (Xiaolong et al., 2021 ). This particular sector (English language faculty) has been chosen purposefully because it better complements the conceptual model of the study adhering communication strategies with faculty engagement and organizational commitment (Kim and Rhee, 2011 ). The questionnaires were in English language; therefore, the English language faculty easily and properly understood the questionnaire. A careful estimation of the sample was made based on the study conducted by Wolf et al. ( 2013 ) who has investigated the parameter estimate biases in detail along with the scenarios where the parameters affect the statistical power, with a thorough statistical analysis. Wolf et al. ( 2013 ) found that a sample size between 30 and 460 cases is found to produce meaningful trends and patterns among the parameters using structural equation modeling. Self-administered survey aided in the data collection process. A total of 350 questionnaires were disbursed among the participants. The respondents were given enough time to fill out the questionnaire. The respondents were told to be natural while filling out the questionnaire and there are no right or wrong responses. A total of 300 questionnaires were collected from the participants over a period of 2 weeks. A total of 24 responses were discarded during the data screening process as they were incomplete or not properly filled by the respondents. A total of 276 responses were found usable after the initial screening for the survey. The usable response rate was 78%. Statistical software was then used for analyzing the data that was obtained from the study participants. The unit of analysis is individuals as the data has been taken from the English language faculty of China.

Statistical Tool

SmartPLS 3.3.3 software was used as it aids in examine the Structured Equation Modeling (SEM) technique. It is considered as a suitable statistical technique for the analyses based on perceptions (i.e., hypotheses testing). The SEM is an equally helpful technique for all research models irrespective of their nature, i.e., univariate, bivariate, or multivariate. According to Hair et al. ( 2017 ), it can be used for both theory exploration and theory confirmation. The partial least square structural equation modeling offers two major advanced regarding data. First of all, traditional multivariate technique requires normal distribution of data, while PLS–SEM is very robust for model estimations and shows flexibility regarding normal distribution, kurtosis and skewness. Second, this technique is also helpful regarding the analysis of ordinal scales along with interval ad ratio scales. This software helps in analyzing the data in a short time with the help of path models such as measurement model and structural model (Nawaz et al., 2020 ). The recent study has used SmartPLS software for analyzing the data since it is very user friendly and generates detailed results. These models help to determine data reliability, data validity, and significance of the relationships between the constructs. On the basis of t -values and p -values, the hypotheses are either rejected or accepted.

Measurement

The data from the study participants were acquired using a 5-point Likert scale. The measurement scales for every construct have been described in detail. The full questionnaire is given in Appendix A.

Information Flow

There were four items in the measurement scale of information flow and it was adopted from Rhee and Moon ( 2009 ). The sample items are such as “Information in our organization flows openly from the top of the organization downwards.” The Cronbach alpha obtained for this scale is 0.884.

Information Adequacy

The measurement scale of information adequacy was adopted from Rhee and Moon ( 2009 ) and it consisted of nine items. The sample items are such as “Employees like me receive adequate information how we are being judged from the organization.” The Cronbach alpha obtained for this scale is 0.941.

Information Feedback

There were five items on the scale of information feedback and it was adopted from Rosen et al. ( 2006 ). The sample items are such as “My supervisor is usually available when I want performance information.” The Cronbach alpha obtained for this scale is 0.922.

Faculty Engagement

The measurement scale of faculty engagement was adopted from Schaufeli et al. ( 2006 ) and it consisted of nine items. The sample items are such as “At my work, I feel bursting with energy.” The Cronbach alpha obtained for this scale is 0.906.

Organizational Commitment

There were five items on the scale of organizational commitment and it was adopted from Gallicano et al. ( 2012 ). The sample items are such as “I have a long-lasting bond with the organization I work for.” The Cronbach alpha obtained for this scale is 0.917.

Demographic Profile

Table 1 below shows the demographic characteristics of the study participants. The table depicts that 57.97% of males and 42.0% of females participated in the study. Moreover, 19.57% of the respondents had an age between 20 and 30 years, 55.47% of the respondents had an age between 31 and 40 years, 16.30% of the respondents had an age between 41 and 50 years, and 14.49% of the respondents had an age above 50 years. The participants had either a bachelor's degree, a master's degree, or a Ph.D., or other degree. A total of 15.58% of the faculty members had a bachelor's degree, 52.27% of the English faculty teacher had a master's degree, while 32.48% had a Ph.D. or other degree. The English faculty teachers who had an experience of <1 year were 18.25%, the English faculty teachers who had an experience of between 1 and 3 years were 43.48%, the English faculty teachers who had an experience of between 4 and 6 years were 27.90%, whereas the English faculty teachers who had an experience of more than 6 years were 10.51%.

Demographics analysis ( N = 276).

Data Analysis and Results

Measurement model.

Figure 2 depicts the outer measurement model. The output of the measurement model assists in explaining the contribution of independent variables to outcome variables.

Output of measurement model. IFlow, Information flow; IAdeq, Information adequacy; IFeedback, Information feedback; FE, Faculty engagement; OC, Organizational commitment.

Table 2 demonstrates the model assessment of the direct model. The value of factor loading of more than 0.60 is considered acceptable (Bollen, 2019 ). The result of the factor loadings for this study shows that the values are above the threshold level; thus, the values are acceptable. The VIF indicator helps in addressing the issue of collinearity. The value of variance inflation factors should be below 5 (Salmerón et al., 2018 ), and the results revealed that all the values are between 1.657 and 4.938; therefore, the issue of multicollinearity was not detected from the data.

Model assessment (direct model).

IF, Information flow; IA, Information adequacy; IFB, Information feedback; FE, Faculty engagement; OC, Organizational commitment; VIF, Variance inflation factor; α, Cronbach alpha; AVE, Average variance extracted .

Table 2 also shows the results for construct reliability and validity. According to Taber ( 2018 ), for determining the internal consistency the value of Cronbach alpha (α) has to be above 0.70. The table shows that the values are above 0.70. For information flow, the value is (α = 0.884); for information adequacy, the value is (α = 0.941); for information feedback, the value is (α = 0.922); for faculty engagement, the value is (α = 0.906 ); and for organizational commitment the value is (α = 0.917); thus, internal consistency exists. Moreover (Benitez et al., 2020 ), explained that the value of composite reliability must be >0.70 for the data to be reliable. The value obtained for the composite reliability is between 0.920 and 0.950 which indicates that the data came out to be reliable. Furthermore, the average variance extracted (AVE) highlights the presence of convergent validity in the data set. This value must be more than 0.50 (Shrestha, 2021 ). The value obtained for AVE is between 0.566 and 0.762 which indicates the existence of convergent validity.

The results for Fornell–Larker Criterion and Heterotrait–Monotrait (HTMT) ratio have been shown in Table 3 . These tests explain the discriminant validity of the data. As for the Fornell–Larkar criterion, the value at the top column should be higher than the following values on the same column (Nawaz et al., 2019 ). For example, for faculty engagement, the first value in the column is 0.752, while the following values are 0.476, 0.533, 0.564, and 0.588, which are < 0.752. For the HTMT ratio, the threshold is below 0.90 (Benitez et al., 2020 ). The results for both these tests are under acceptable ranges; thus, it shows that discriminant validity exists.

Discriminant validity.

N = 276, IF, Information flow; IA, Information adequacy; IFB, Information feedback; FE, Faculty engagement; OC, Organizational commitment .

The R 2 -value explains the sustainability of the model and its value should be near 0.50 (Akossou and Palm, 2013 ). The values of R 2 obtained for faculty engagement and organizational commitment are 0.360 and 0.495, respectively. The values are close to 0.50; therefore, the model shows sustainability. The model with values below 5 is said to be free from collinearity (Legate et al., 2021 ). The table demonstrates that the values are between 1.580 and 3.050; thus, there was no issue of collinearity.

Structural Model

Figure 3 presents the output of structural model bootstrapping. This shows the values of t -statistics. The PLS–SEM bootstrapping technique used a 95% confidence interval to accept or reject the proposed hypotheses of this study.

Structural model bootstrapping. IFlow, Information flow; IAdeq, Information adequacy; IFeedback, Information feedback; FE, Faculty engagement; OC, Organizational commitment.

Tables 4 , ​ ,5 5 reveal the direct effect and indirect effects of the study. The hypotheses were accepted or rejected on the basis of p -values and t -statistics. According to Winship and Zhuo ( 2020 ), the t -statistics have to be more than 1.96. Likewise, the threshold for p -value is < 0.50 (95% confidence interval) (Ioannidis, 2018 ). These tables also present the f -values (effect size) that explain the strength of the model. The f -values that are close to 1 indicate a strong effect while the values near to 0 signify a weak effect (Funder and Ozer, 2019 ).

Direct effects of the variable.

N = 276, *** p < 0.001, ** p < 0.005, * p < 0.05 .

H, Hypothesis; O, Original sample; M, Sample mean; SD, Standard deviation; SRMR = 0.092, NFI = 0.688, IF, Information flow; IA, Information adequacy; IFB, Information feedback; FE, Faculty engagement; OC, Organizational commitment .

Indirect effects of the variable.

N = 276, ** p < 0.005, * p < 0.05 .

H, Hypothesis; O, Original sample; M, Sample mean; SD, Standard deviation; SRMR = 0.092; NFI = 0.688; IF, Information flow; IA, Information adequacy; IFB, Information feedback; FE, Faculty engagement; OC, Organizational commitment .

Table 4 demonstrates the results for Hypotheses H1–H7, i.e., direct effects of the variables. Hypothesis H1 proposed that information flow plays a role in faculty engagement. The results showed that the acceptance of Hypothesis H1 as ( t = 3.276; p = 0.000). The value of effect size ( f 2 = 0.057) indicates the model is weak. Hypothesis H2 proposed that information flow plays a role in organizational commitment. The results showed that the acceptance of Hypothesis H2 as ( t = 6.091; p = 0.001). The value of effect size ( f 2 = 0.103) indicates the model is weak. Hypothesis H3 proposed that information adequacy plays a role in faculty engagement. The results showed that the rejection of Hypothesis H3 as ( t = 1.128; p = 0.260). The value of effect size ( f 2 = 0.004) indicates the model is very weak. Hypothesis H4 proposed that information adequacy plays a role in organizational commitment. The results showed that the acceptance of H4 as ( t = 2.492; p = 0.000). The value of effect size ( f 2 = 0.020) indicates the model is weak. Hypothesis H5 proposed that information feedback plays a role in faculty engagement. The results showed that the acceptance of H5 as ( t = 4.056; p = 0.000). The value of effect size ( f 2 = 0.069) indicates the model is weak. Hypothesis H6 proposed that information feedback plays a role in organizational commitment. The results showed that the acceptance of H6 as ( t = 3.426; p = 0.001). The value of effect size ( f 2 = 0.064) indicates the model is weak. Hypothesis H7 proposed that faculty engagement plays a role in organizational commitment. The results showed that the acceptance of H7 as ( t = 4.263; p = 0.000). The value of effect size ( f 2 = 0.119) indicates the model is weak.

Table 5 presents the results for Hypotheses H8–H10, i.e., the indirect effects of the variables. H8 proposed that faculty engagement mediates the relationship between information flow and organizational commitment. The results showed that the acceptance of Hypothesis H8 as ( t = 2.490; p = 0.013). Hypothesis H9 proposed that faculty engagement mediates the relationship between information adequacy and organizational commitment. The results showed that the rejection of Hypothesis H9 as ( t = 1.058; p = 0.291). Hypothesis H10 proposed that faculty engagement mediates the relationship between information feedback and organizational commitment. The results showed that the acceptance of Hypothesis H10 as ( t = 3.012; p = 0.003).

The purpose of this study was to progress supposition in the field of faculty–organization relationships through analyzing the effect of faculty engagement in these relationships and by gaining a better understanding of how organizations instill committed relationships to faulty members through communication. For this purpose, we created and tested a framework wherein faculty engagement mediated the association between communication strategies and organizational commitment among educational organization's faculty members. The communication strategies included information flow, adequacy of information, and information feedback. The three employee communication variables studied in this study were all drivers of faculty engagement, which was linked to organizational commitment.

This study tried to find out the possible associations between information flow, information adequacy, information feedback, and faculty engagement. This kind of relationships suggested that the teachers, who were communicated properly through the organizational management, were more engaged to their duties. The better the things communicated to the faculty members, better should have been the level of engagement to their jobs. This kind of associations were suggested by some of the scholars of recent past in which the associations of these communication strategies were assessed in terms of job engagement of young generation (Walden et al., 2017 ). The results showed mixed indications in this study.

The first direct association of information flow with faculty engagement indicated strong association indicating that if information is properly passed on from the administration to the teachers, then it could lead to enhanced dedicated engagement with working by the teachers. The possible reason lies in the flow of information indicating that if information is present but not passed on to the faculty members then it would be difficult for them to do the things on their own. The association of information adequacy with faculty engagement indicated that it was not necessary for the information to be adequate while working of teachers, as there was no significant indication of relationship between both of these. The reason could be drawn from the supposition that the required information for work engagement of teachers does not have any set amount. This information could be of any amount and length as also indicated by Suh et al. ( 2018 ).

It was indicated through the results that feedback is very important factor in any communication approach across the organizations (Wang et al., 2020 ). The results of the association between information feedback and faculty engagement proved that if feedbacks are given properly through communication, then it could lead to more engaged working by the faculty members in educational organizations. The results of all these hypotheses are in accordance with (Walden et al., 2017 ). They also got the similar results in regard to the millennial generation communication approaches. This study also tried to find out the possible associations of information flow, information adequacy, and information feedback for assessing the organizational commitment of the faculty members. The results indicated a strong positive association between all these three associations.

Similar kind of results were also obtained by Walden et al. ( 2017 ) who also found significant associations between communication strategies and the organizational commitment of the employees. The reason behind such results are also alike the reasons for the associations with job engagement of faculty members. The flow of information is necessary, information quantity should be in adequate levels and feedback is also necessary for attaining organizational commitment as were required for the engagement to job. These associations were also indicated by some of the previous researchers in the field of organizational management such as Albdour and Ikhlas ( 2014 ) and Sadia et al. ( 2016 ). The last direct association was assessed between faculty engagement and organizational commitment.

Previously, a lot of research has been carried out in finding the associations between job engagement, work engagement, student engagement, teachers' engagement, and organizational commitment (Xie and Derakhshan, 2021 ). These associations were also suggested by Tomietto et al. ( 2019 ). The results of this study also indicated that more engaged faculty proves more commitment with their organizations. The mediating or indirect associations were also tested in this study indicating that faculty engagement positively mediated between information flow, information feedback, and organizational commitment. While it could not mediate the relationship between information adequacy and organizational commitment as again the amount of information was not considered necessary component in communication strategies for developing commitment with the organizations. Similar kind of mixed results were also shown by Walden et al. ( 2017 ).

Theoretical Implications

This study has some significant theoretical implications. First, the study examined the role of internal strategies of communication (i.e., information flow, information adequacy, and information feedback) on organizational commitment. Such a model has not been investigated and explored before; therefore this study thoroughly added to the existing public relation and education literature. This study also found that among these three communication strategies, two strategies, i.e., information flow and information feedback significantly impacted the faculty engagement. This study has enriched the literature by examining faculty engagement as a mediator. The reader can understand how significant is faculty engagement in facilitating the relationship between information flow and organizational commitment and between information feedback and organizational commitment. This study would enhance the current knowledge of the readers with regard to communication strategies, organizational commitment, and faculty engagement.

Practical Implications

This study provides some practical implications that are significant for the management of educational institutes. Based on the results of the result, communication strategies such as information flow, information adequacy, and information feedback are important factors for inducing organizational commitment among the faculty members. Therefore, the management of the institutes should enhance communication strategies by encouraging the employees to collaborate effectively. Hiring supportive leaders who can facilitate the smooth flow of information within the organization. Another way through which communication strategies can be improved is by having a decentralized system within the organization. Moreover, information flow and information feedback are important indicators that help to maximize faculty engagement. Engagement of the faculty can be measured using performance appraisals; hence, the performance appraisals must be conducted quarterly to examine how engaged the faculty members are. Therefore, the role of communication strategies is crucial for improving organizational commitment and faculty engagement.

Limitations and Recommendations

Although this study was designed to study English language teachers, in the future studies, other subject teachers can also be considered. Western regions and other Asian countries (apart from China) might show different results as the context of the study would be changed in the future studies. Moreover, increasing the sample size would be beneficial in generalizing the data. In the future studies, a mixed approach can be deployed to have an in-depth understanding of the relationship between study variables. This study examined the role of three different communication strategies, i.e., information flow, information adequacy, and information feedback on organizational commitment with the mediation of faculty engagement. The future studies can examine the role of faculty motivation as a mediator and organizational support as a moderator in the relationship between communication strategies and organizational commitment.

Fostering organizational commitment for the employees is necessary for the organization to deliver high-quality service to the end-user. In this regard, organizations are seeking ways to enhance organizational commitment through communication strategies. Therefore, this study investigated the role of communication strategies (i.e., information flow, information adequacy, and information feedback) on organizational commitment with the mediation of faculty engagement among English language teachers in China. The outcome of the study demonstrated that information flow and information feedback significantly impact organizational commitment and faculty engagement. The analysis also revealed that information adequacy significantly impacts organizational commitment but has no relationship with faculty engagement. The mediation analysis demonstrated that faculty engagement mediated the relationship between information flow and organizational commitment; and between information feedback and organization commitment. However, faculty engagement did not mediate the relationship between information adequacy and organizational commitment among English language teachers in China.

Data Availability Statement

Ethics statement.

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Lanzhou City University, China. The participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

Author Contributions

YM conceived, designed the concept, collected the data, wrote the article, read, and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Conflict of Interest

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Appendix A (Questionnaire)

Information flow

• Information in our organization flows openly from the top of the organization downward.
• Information in our organization flows openly to the top of the organization.
• Information in our organization flows openly between workgroups/departments.
• Information in our organization flows openly throughout the overall organization.

Information adequacy

• Employees like me receive adequate information how we are being judged from the organization.
• Employees like me receive adequate job performance information from the organization.
• Employees like me receive adequate information about employee welfare from our organization.
• Employees like me receive adequate information about our progress in our job from the organization.
• Employees like me receive adequate information about the goals of the organization.
• Employees like me receive adequate information about changes within our organization.
• Employees like me receive adequate information about policy within the organization.
• Employees like me receive adequate information about accomplishments of the organization.
• Employees like me receive adequate information how organization profits and standing.

Faculty engagement

• At my work, I feel bursting with energy.
• At my job, I feel strong and vigorous.
• I am enthusiastic about my job.
• My job inspires me.
• When I get up in the morning, I feel like going to work.
• I feel happy when I am working intensely.
• I am proud of the work that I do.
• I am immersed in my work.
• I get carried away when I am working.

Organizational commitment

• I have a long-lasting bond with the organization I work for.
• Compared to other potential employers, I value my relationship with the organization I work for more.
• I would rather work together with this organization than not.
• I feel that the organization I work for is trying to maintain a long-term commitment to me.
• I can see that the organization I work for wants to maintain a relationship with me.

Information feedback

• My supervisor is usually available when I want performance information.
• My supervisor is too busy to give me feedback.
• I have little contact with my supervisor.
• I interact with my supervisor on a daily basis.
• The only time I receive performance feedback from my supervisor is during my performance review.
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https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2024/03/staff-spotlight-dr-ankit-sharma

Staff Spotlight - Dr. Ankit Sharma

The flammability reduction group welcomes dr. ankit sharma as a professional research experience program (prep) researcher.

We are thrilled to announce that Dr. Ankit Sharma has joined the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as an Associate (PREP) in the Flammability Reduction Group of the Fire Research Division (FRD). Dr. Sharma will collaborate with Dr. Mauro Zammarano on " Fire Barriers for Low Heat Release Products ” and other material and fire safety projects within FRD.

Dr. Sharma brings experience in experimental and numerical techniques for studying material flammability, with a focus on areas such as fires in Li-ion batteries, microgravity combustion, and high-rise building façades. His academic journey includes earning a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee, India, and a Postdoctoral Researcher on a NASA-sponsored project at Case Western Reserve University.

Notably, his contributions have been recognized with the SFPE 5 Under 35 award in 2023 and the SFPE Foundation Grand Challenges Initiative Fellowship for Climate Change .

Ankit grew up in Jammu and Kashmir (often known as heaven on Earth) in the northern part of India.  He has a penchant for outdoor sports, traveling, and hiking, having explored the majestic Himalayan Mountain range. His adventurous spirit is evident in experiences like bungee jumping from a towering height of 272 feet. Ankit enjoys spending quality time with his loved ones, indulging in culinary pursuits, delving into literature, enjoying music, and exploring the intricacies of life.

Please join us in extending a warm welcome to Dr. Ankit Sharma as he embarks on this exciting chapter with NIST. We look forward to the valuable contributions and insights he will bring to our team as we continue to advance research and innovation in fire safety.

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FACT SHEET: President   Biden Issues Executive Order and Announces New Actions to Advance Women’s Health Research and   Innovation

In his State of the Union address, President Biden laid out his vision for transforming women’s health research and improving women’s lives all across America. The President called on Congress to make a bold, transformative investment of $12 billion in new funding for women’s health research. This investment would be used to create a Fund for Women’s Health Research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to advance a cutting-edge, interdisciplinary research agenda and to establish a new nationwide network of research centers of excellence and innovation in women’s health—which would serve as a national gold standard for women’s health research across the lifespan.

It is long past time to ensure women get the answers they need when it comes to their health—from cardiovascular disease to autoimmune diseases to menopause-related conditions. To pioneer the next generation of discoveries, the President and the First Lady launched the first-ever White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research , which aims to fundamentally change how we approach and fund women’s health research in the United States.

Today, President Biden is signing a new Executive Order that will direct the most comprehensive set of executive actions ever taken to expand and improve research on women’s health. These directives will ensure women’s health is integrated and prioritized across the federal research portfolio and budget, and will galvanize new research on a wide range of topics, including women’s midlife health.

The President and First Lady are also announcing more than twenty new actions and commitments by federal agencies, including through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Department of Defense (DoD), the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and the National Science Foundation (NSF). This includes the launch of a new NIH-wide effort that will direct key investments of $200 million in Fiscal Year 2025 to fund new, interdisciplinary women’s health research—a first step towards the transformative central Fund on Women’s Health that the President has called on Congress to invest in. These actions also build on the First Lady’s announcement last month of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) Sprint for Women’s Health , which committed $100 million towards transformative research and development in women’s health.

Today, the President is issuing an Executive Order that will:

• Integrate Women’s Health Across the Federal Research Portfolio . The Executive Order directs the Initiative’s constituent agencies to develop and strengthen research and data standards on women’s health across all relevant research and funding opportunities, with the goal of helping ensure that the Administration is better leveraging every dollar of federal funding for health research to improve women’s health. These actions will build on the NIH’s current policy to ensure that research it funds considers women’s health in the development of study design and in data collection and analysis. Agencies will take action to ensure women’s health is being considered at every step in the research process—from the applications that prospective grantees submit to the way that they report on grant implementation.
• Prioritize Investments in Women’s Health Research . The Executive Order directs the Initiative’s constituent agencies to prioritize funding for women’s health research and encourage innovation in women’s health, including through ARPA-H and multi-agency initiatives such as the Small Business Innovation Research Program and the Small Business Technology Transfer Program. These entities are dedicated to high-impact research and innovation, including through the support of early-stage small businesses and entrepreneurs engaged in research and innovation. The Executive Order further directs HHS and NSF to study ways to leverage artificial intelligence to advance women’s health research. These additional investments—across a wide range of agencies—will support innovation and open new doors to breakthroughs in women’s health.
• Galvanize New Research on Women’s Midlife Health .  To narrow research gaps on diseases and conditions associated with women’s midlife health or that are more likely to occur after menopause, such as rheumatoid arthritis, heart attack, and osteoporosis, the President is directing HHS to: expand data collection efforts related to women’s midlife health; launch a comprehensive research agenda that will guide future investments in menopause-related research; identify ways to improve management of menopause-related issues and the clinical care that women receive; and develop new resources to help women better understand their options for menopause-related symptoms prevention and treatment. The Executive Order also directs the DoD and VA to study and take steps to improve the treatment of, and research related to, menopause for Service women and women veterans.
• Assess Unmet Needs to Support Women’s Health Research . The Executive Order directs the Office of Management and Budget and the Gender Policy Council to lead a robust effort to assess gaps in federal funding for women’s health research and identify changes—whether statutory, regulatory, or budgetary—that are needed to maximally support the broad scope of women’s health research across the federal government. Agencies will also be required to report annually on their investments in women’s health research, as well as progress towards their efforts to improve women’s health.

Today, agencies are also announcing new actions they are taking to promote women’s health research , as part of their ongoing efforts through the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research. Agencies are announcing actions to:

Prioritize and Increase Investments in Women’s Health Research

• Launch an NIH-Cross Cutting Effort to Transform Women’s Health Throughout the Lifespan. NIH is launching an NIH-wide effort to close gaps in women’s health research across the lifespan. This effort—which will initially be supported by $200 million from NIH beginning in FY 2025—will allow NIH to catalyze interdisciplinary research, particularly on issues that cut across the traditional mandates of the institutes and centers at NIH. It will also allow NIH to launch ambitious, multi-faceted research projects such as research on the impact of perimenopause and menopause on heart health, brain health and bone health. In addition, the President’s FY25 Budget Request would double current funding for the NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health to support new and existing initiatives that emphasize women’s health research.

This coordinated, NIH-wide effort will be co-chaired by the NIH Office of the Director, the Office of Research on Women’s Health, and the institute directors from the National Institute on Aging; the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; the National Institute on Drug Abuse; the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development; the National Institute on Arthritis, Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases.

• Invest in Research on a Wide Range of Women’s Health Issues. The bipartisan Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program (CDMRP), led out of DoD, funds research on women’s health encompassing a range of diseases and conditions that affect women uniquely, disproportionately, or differently from men. While the programs and topic areas directed by Congress differ each year, CDMRP has consistently funded research to advance women’s health since its creation in 1993. In Fiscal Year 2022, DoD implemented nearly $490 million in CDMRP investments towards women’s health research projects ranging from breast and ovarian cancer to lupus to orthotics and prosthetics in women.  In Fiscal Year 2023, DoD anticipates implementing approximately $500 million in CDMRP funding for women’s health research, including in endometriosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and chronic fatigue.
• Call for New Proposals on Emerging Women’s Health Issues . Today, NSF is calling for new research and education proposals to advance discoveries and innovations related to women’s health. To promote multidisciplinary solutions to women’s health disparities, NSF invites applications that would improve women’s health through a wide range of disciplines—from computational research to engineering biomechanics. This is the first time that NSF has broadly called for novel and transformative research that is focused entirely on women’s health topics, and proposals will be considered on an ongoing basis.
• Increase Research on How Environmental Factors Affect Women’s Health. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is updating its grant solicitations and contracts to ensure that applicants prioritize, as appropriate, the consideration of women’s exposures and health outcomes. These changes will help ensure that women’s health is better accounted for across EPA’s research portfolio and increase our knowledge of women’s environmental health—from endocrine disruption to toxic exposure.
• Create a Dedicated, One-Stop Shop for NIH Funding Opportunities on Women’s Health. Researchers are often unaware of existing opportunities to apply for federal funding. To help close this gap, NIH is issuing a new Notice of Special Interest that identifies current, open funding opportunities related to women’s health research across a wide range of health conditions and all Institutes, Centers, and Offices. The NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health will build on this new Notice by creating a dedicated one-stop shop on open funding opportunities related to women’s health research. This will make it easier for researchers and institutions to find and apply for funding—instead of having to search across each of NIH’s 27 institutes for funding opportunities.

Foster Innovation and Discovery in Women’s Health

• Accelerate Transformative Research and Development in Women’s Health. ARPA-H’s Sprint for Women’s Health launched in February 2024 commits $100 million to transformative research and development in women’s health. ARPA-H is soliciting ideas for novel groundbreaking research and development to address women’s health, as well as opportunities to accelerate and scale tools, products, and platforms with the potential for commercialization to improve women’s health outcomes.
• Support Private Sector Innovation Through Additional Federal Investments in Women’s Health Research. The NIH’s competitive Small Business Innovation Research Program and the Small Business Technology Transfer Program is committing to further increasing—by 50 percent—its investments in supporting innovators and early-stage small businesses engaged in research and development on women’s health. These programs will solicit new proposals on promising women’s health innovation and make evidence-based investments that bridge the gap between performance of basic science and commercialization of resulting innovations. This commitment for additional funds builds on the investments the Administration has already made to increase innovation in women’s health through small businesses, including by increasing investments by sevenfold between Fiscal Year 2021 and Fiscal Year 2023.
• Advance Initiatives to Protect and Promote the Health of Women. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) seeks to advance efforts to help address gaps in research and availability of products for diseases and conditions that primarily impact women, or for which scientific considerations may be different for women, and is committed to research and regulatory initiatives that facilitate the development of safe and effective medical products for women. FDA also plans to issue guidance for industry that relates to the inclusion of women in clinical trials and conduct outreach to stakeholders to discuss opportunities to advance women’s health across the lifespan. And FDA’s Office of Women’s Health will update FDA’s framework for women’s health research and seek to fund research with an emphasis on bridging gaps in knowledge on important women’s health topics, including sex differences and conditions that uniquely or disproportionately impact women.
• Use Biomarkers to Improve the Health of Women Through Early Detection and Treatment of Conditions, such as Endometriosis. NIH will launch a new initiative dedicated to research on biomarker discovery and validation to help improve our ability to prevent, diagnose, and treat conditions that affect women uniquely, including endometriosis. This NIH initiative will accelerate our ability to identify new pathways for diagnosis and treatment by encouraging multi-sector collaboration and synergistic research that will speed the transfer of knowledge from bench to bedside.
• Leverage Engineering Research to Improve Women’s Health . The NSF Engineering Research Visioning Alliance (ERVA) is convening national experts to identify high-impact research opportunities in engineering that can improve women’s health. ERVA’s Transforming Women’s Health Outcomes Through Engineering visioning event will be held in June 2024, and will bring together experts from across engineering—including those in microfluidics, computational modeling, artificial intelligence/imaging, and diagnostic technologies and devices—to evaluate the landscape for new applications in women’s health. Following this event, ERVA will issue a report and roadmap on critical areas where engineering research can impact women’s health across the lifespan.
• Drive Engineering Innovations in Women’s Health Discovery . NSF awardees at Texas A&M University will hold a conference in summer 2024 to collectively identify challenges and opportunities in improving women’s health through engineering. Biomedical engineers and scientists will explore and identify how various types of engineering tools, including biomechanics and immuno-engineering, can be applied to women’s health and spark promising new research directions.

Expand and Leverage Data Collection and Analysis Related to Women’s Health

• Help Standardize Data to Support Research on Women’s Health. NIH is launching an effort to identify and develop new common data elements related to women’s health that will help researchers share and combine datasets, promote interoperability, and improve the accuracy of datasets when it comes to women’s health. NIH will initiate this process by convening data and scientific experts across the federal government to solicit feedback on the need to develop new NIH-endorsed common data elements—which are widely used in both research and clinical settings. By advancing new tools to capture more data about women’s health, NIH will give researchers and clinicians the tools they need to enable more meaningful data collection, analysis, and reporting and comprehensively improve our knowledge of women’s health.
• Reflect Women’s Health Needs in National Coverage Determinations. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will strengthen its review process, including through Coverage with Evidence Development guidance, to ensure that new medical services and technologies work well in women, as applicable, before being covered nationally through the Medicare program. This will help ensure that Medicare funds are used for treatments with a sufficient evidence base to show that they actually work in women, who make up more than half of the Medicare population.
• Leverage Data and Quality Measures to Advance Women’s Health Research. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) are building on existing datasets to improve the collection, analysis, and reporting of information on women’s health. The CDC is expanding the collection of key quality measures across a woman’s lifespan, including to understand the link between pregnancy and post-partum hypertension and heart disease, and plans to release the Million Hearts Hypertension in Pregnancy Change Package. This resource will feature a menu of evidence-informed strategies by which clinicians can change care processes. Each strategy includes tested tools and resources to support related clinical quality improvement. HRSA is modernizing its Uniform Data System in ways that will improve the ability to assess how women are being served through HRSA-funded health centers. By improving the ability to analyze data on key clinical quality measures, CDC and HRSA can help close gaps in women’s health care access and identify new opportunities for high-impact research.  

Strengthen Coordination, Infrastructure, and Training to Support Women’s Health Research

• Launch New Joint Collaborative to Improve Women’s Health Research for Service Members and Veterans. DoD and VA are launching a new Women’s Health Research collaborative to explore opportunities that further promote joint efforts to advance women’s health research and improve evidence-based care for Service members and veterans. The collaborative will increase coordination with the goal of helping improve care across the lifespan for women in the military and women veterans. The Departments will further advance research on key women’s health issues and develop a roadmap to close pressing research gaps, including those specifically affecting Service women and women veterans.
• Coordinate Research to Advance the Health of Women in the Military. DoD will invest $10 million, contingent on available funds, in the Military Women’s Health Research Partnership. This Partnership is led by the Uniformed Services University and advances and coordinates women’s health research across the Department. The Partnership is supporting research in a wide range of health issues affecting women in the military, including cancers, mental and behavioral health, and the unique health care needs of Active Duty Service Women. In addition, the Uniformed Services University established a dedicated Director of Military Women’s Health Research Program, a role that is responsible for identifying research gaps, fostering collaboration, and coordinating and aligning a unified approach to address the evolving needs of Active Duty Service Women.
• Support EPA-Wide Research and Dissemination of Data on Women’s Health. EPA is establishing a Women’s Health Community of Practice to coordinate research and data dissemination. EPA also plans to direct the Board of Scientific Counselors to identify ways to advance EPA’s research with specific consideration of the intersection of environmental factors and women’s health, including maternal health.
• Expand Fellowship Training in Women’s Health Research. CDC, in collaboration with the CDC Foundation and American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology, is expanding training in women’s health research and public health surveillance to OBGYNs, nurses and advanced practice nurses. Through fellowships and public health experiences with CDC, these clinicians will gain public health research skills to improve the health of women and children exposed to or affected by infectious diseases, mental health and substance use disorders. CDC will invite early career clinicians to train in public health and policy to become future leaders in women’s health research.

Improve Women’s Health Across the Lifespan

• Create a Comprehensive Research Agenda on Menopause. To help women get the answers they need about menopause, NIH will launch its first-ever Pathways to Prevention series on menopause and the treatment of menopausal symptoms. Pathways to Prevention is an independent, evidence-based process to synthesize the current state of the evidence, identify gaps in existing research, and develop a roadmap that can be used to help guide the field forward. The report, once completed, will help guide innovation and investments in menopause-related research and care across the federal government and research community.
• Improve Primary Care and Preventive Services for Women . The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) will issue a Notice of Intent to publish a funding opportunity announcement for research to advance the science of primary care, which will include a focus on women’s health. Through this funding opportunity, AHRQ will build evidence about key elements of primary care that influence patient outcomes and advance health equity—focusing on women of color—such as care coordination, continuity of care, comprehensiveness of care, person-centered care, and trust. The results from the funding opportunity will shed light on vital targets for improvements in the delivery of primary healthcare across a woman’s lifespan, including women’s health preventive services, prevention and management of multiple chronic diseases, perinatal care, transition from pediatric to adult care, sexual and reproductive health, and care of older adults.
• Promote the Health of American Indian and Alaska Native Women. The Indian Health Service is launching a series of engagements, including focus groups, to better understand tribal beliefs related to menopause in American Indian and Alaska Native Women. This series will inform new opportunities to expand culturally informed patient care and research as well as the development of new resources and educational materials.
• Connect Research to Real-World Outcomes to Improve Women’s Mental and Behavioral Health. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is supporting a range of health care providers to address the unique needs of women with or at risk for mental health and substance use disorders. Building on its current efforts to provide technical assistance through various initiatives , SAMHSA intends, contingent on available funds, to launch a new comprehensive Women’s Behavioral Health Technical Assistance Center. This center will identify and improve the implementation of best practices in women’s behavioral health across the life span; identify and fill critical gaps in knowledge of and resources for women’s behavioral health; and provide learning opportunities, training, and technical assistance for healthcare providers.
• Support Research on Maternal Health Outcomes. USDA will fund research to help recognize early warning signs of maternal morbidity and mortality in recipients of Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), and anticipates awarding up to $5 million in Fiscal Year 2023 to support maternal health research through WIC. In addition, research being conducted through the Agricultural Research Service’s Human Nutrition Research Centers is focusing on women’s health across the lifespan, including the nutritional needs of pregnant and breastfeeding women and older adults.

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Climate change indicators reached record levels in 2023: WMO

The state of the climate in 2023 gave ominous new significance to the phrase “off the charts.”

• State of Global Climate report confirms 2023 as hottest year on record by clear margin
• Records broken for ocean heat, sea level rise, Antarctic sea ice loss and glacier retreat
• Extreme weather undermines socio-economic development
• Renewable energy transition provides hope
• Cost of climate inaction is higher than cost of climate action

A new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) shows that records were once again broken, and in some cases smashed, for greenhouse gas levels, surface temperatures, ocean heat and acidification, sea level rise, Antarctic sea ice cover and glacier retreat.

Heatwaves, floods, droughts, wildfires and rapidly intensifying tropical cyclones caused misery and mayhem, upending every-day life for millions and inflicting many billions of dollars in economic losses, according to the WMO State of the Global Climate 2023 report.

The WMO report confirmed that 2023 was the warmest year on record, with the global average near-surface temperature at 1.45 °Celsius (with a margin of uncertainty of ± 0.12 °C) above the pre-industrial baseline. It was the warmest ten-year period on record.

“Sirens are blaring across all major indicators... Some records aren’t just chart-topping, they’re chart-busting. And changes are speeding-up.” said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres .

“Never have we been so close – albeit on a temporary basis at the moment – to the 1.5° C lower limit of the Paris Agreement on climate change.” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo. “The WMO community is sounding the Red Alert to the world.”

“Climate change is about much more than temperatures. What we witnessed in 2023, especially with the unprecedented ocean warmth, glacier retreat and Antarctic sea ice loss, is cause for particular concern,” she said.

On an average day in 2023, nearly one third of the global ocean was gripped by a marine heatwave, harming vital ecosystems and food systems. Towards the end of 2023, over 90% of the ocean had experienced heatwave conditions at some point during the year.

The global set of reference glaciers suffered the largest loss of ice on record (since 1950), driven by extreme melt in both western North America and Europe, according to preliminary data.

Antarctic sea ice extent was by far the lowest on record, with the maximum extent at the end of winter at 1 million km2 below the previous record year - equivalent to the size of France and Germany combined.

“The climate crisis is THE defining challenge that humanity faces and is closely intertwined with the inequality crisis – as witnessed by growing food insecurity and population displacement, and biodiversity loss” said Celeste Saulo.

The number of people who are acutely food insecure worldwide has more than doubled, from 149 million people before the COVID-19 pandemic to 333 million people in 2023 (in 78 monitored countries by the World Food Programme). Weather and climate extremes may not be the root cause, but they are aggravating factors, according to the report.

Weather hazards continued to trigger displacement in 2023, showing how climate shocks undermine resilience and create new protection risks among the most vulnerable populations.

There is, however, a glimmer of hope.

Renewable energy generation, primarily driven by the dynamic forces of solar radiation, wind and the water cycle, has surged to the forefront of climate action for its potential to achieve decarbonization targets. In 2023, renewable capacity additions increased by almost 50% from 2022, for a total of 510 gigawatts (GW) – the highest rate observed in the past two decades.

This week, at the Copenhagen Climate Ministerial on 21-22 March, climate leaders and ministers from around the world will gather for the first time since COP28 in Dubai to push for accelerated climate action. Enhancing countries Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) ahead of the February 2025 deadline, will be high on the agenda, as will delivering an ambitious agreement on financing at COP29 to turn national plans into action.

"Climate Action is currently being hampered by a lack of capacity to deliver and use climate services to inform national mitigation and adaptation plans, especially in developing countries. We need to increase support for National Meteorological and Hydrological Services to be able to provide information services to ensure the next generation of Nationally Determined Contributions are based on science", said Celeste Saulo.

The State of the Global Climate report was released in time for World Meteorological Day on 23 March. It also sets the scene for a new climate action campaign by the UN Development Programme and WMO to be launched on 21 March. It will inform discussions at a climate ministerial meeting in Copenhagen on 21-22 March.

Dozens of experts and partners contribute to the report, including UN organizations, National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) and Global Data and Analysis Centers, as well as Regional Climate Centres, the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), the Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW), the Global Cryosphere Watch and Copernicus Climate Change Service operated by ECMWF.  

Key messages

Greenhouse gases.

Observed concentrations of the three main greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide – reached record levels in 2022. Real-time data from specific locations show a continued increase in 2023.

CO2 levels are 50 % higher than the pre-industrial era, trapping heat in the atmosphere. The long lifetime of CO2 means that temperatures will continue to rise for many years to come.

Temperature

The global mean near-surface temperature in 2023 was 1.45 ± 0.12 °C above the pre-industrial 1850–1900 average. 2023 was the warmest year in the 174-year observational record. This shattered the record of the previous warmest years, 2016 at 1.29 ± 0.12 °C above the 1850–1900 average and 2020 at 1.27±0.13 °C.

The ten-year average 2014–2023 global temperature is 1.20±0.12°C above the 1850–1900 average.  Globally, every month from June to December was record warm for the respective month. September 2023 was particularly noteworthy, surpassing the previous global record for September by a wide margin (0.46 to 0.54 °C).

The long-term increase in global temperature is due to increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The shift from La Niña to El Niño conditions in the middle of 2023 contributed to the rapid rise in temperature from 2022 to 2023.

Global average sea-surface temperatures (SSTs) were at a record high from April onwards, with the records  in July, August and September broken by a particularly wide margin. Exceptional warmth was recorded in the eastern North Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, the North Pacific and large areas of the Southern Ocean, with widespread marine heatwaves.

Some areas of unusual warming such as the Northeast Atlantic do not correspond to typical patterns of warming associated with El Niño, which was visibly present in the Tropical Pacific.

Ocean heat content reached its highest level in 2023, according to a consolidated analysis of data. Warming rates show a particularly strong increase in the past two decades.

It is expected that warming will continue – a change which is irreversible on scales of hundreds to thousands of years.

More frequent and intense marine heatwaves have profound negative repercussions for marine ecosystems and coral reefs.

The global ocean experienced an average daily marine heatwave coverage of 32%, well above the previous record of 23% in 2016. At the end of 2023, most of the global ocean between 20° S and 20° N had been in heatwave conditions since early November.  

Of particular note were the widespread marine heatwaves in the North Atlantic which began in the Northern Hemisphere spring, peaked in extent in September and persisted through to the end of the year. The end of 2023 saw a broad band of severe and extreme marine heatwave across the North Atlantic, with temperatures 3 °C above average.

The Mediterranean Sea experienced near complete coverage of strong and severe marine heatwaves for the twelfth consecutive year.

Ocean acidification has increased as a result of absorbing carbon dioxide.

Sea level rise

In 2023, global mean sea level reached a record high in the satellite record (since 1993), reflecting continued ocean warming (thermal expansion) as well as the melting of glaciers and ice sheets.

The rate of global mean sea level rise in the past ten years (2014–2023) is more than twice the rate of sea level rise in the first decade of the satellite record (1993–2002).

Antarctic sea-ice extent reached an absolute record low for the satellite era (since 1979) in February 2023 and remained at record low for the time of year from June till early November. The annual maximum in September was 16.96 million km2, roughly 1.5 million km2 below the 1991–2020 average and 1 million km2 below the previous record low maximum.

Arctic sea-ice extent remained well below normal, with the annual maximum and minimum sea ice extents being the fifth and sixth lowest on record respectively.

Ice sheets: There are two principal ice sheets, the Greenland Ice Sheet and the Antarctic ice Sheet. Combining the two ice sheets, the seven highest melt years on record are all since 2010, and average rates of mass loss increased from 105 Gigatonnes per year  from 1992–1996 to 372 Gigatonnes per year from 2016–2020. This is equivalent to about 1 mm per year of global sea level rise attributed to the ice sheets in the latter period.

The Greenland Ice Sheet continued to lose mass in the hydrological year 2022–2023 It was the warmest summer on record at Greenland’s Summit station, 1.0 °C warmer than the previous record. Satellite melt-extent data indicate that the ice sheet had the third highest cumulative melt-day area on record (1978–2023), after the extreme melt season of 2012 and 2010.

Glaciers: Preliminary data for the hydrological year 2022-2023 indicate that the global set of reference glaciers suffered the largest loss of ice on record (1950-2023), driven by extremely negative mass balance in both western North America and Europe.

Glaciers in the European Alps experienced an extreme melt season. In Switzerland, glaciers have lost around 10% of their remaining volume in the past two years. Western North America suffered record glacier mass loss in 2023 – at a rate which was five times higher than rates measured for the period 2000-2019. Glaciers in western North America have lost an estimated 9% of their 2020 volume over the period 2020-2023.

Extreme weather and climate events

Extreme weather and climate events had major socio-economic impacts on all inhabited continents. These included major floods, tropical cyclones, extreme heat and drought, and associated wildfires.

Flooding linked to extreme rainfall from Mediterranean Cyclone Daniel affected Greece, Bulgaria, Türkiye, and Libya with particularly heavy loss of life in Libya in September.

Tropical Cyclone Freddy in February and March was one of the world’s longest-lived tropical cyclones with major impacts on Madagascar, Mozambique and Malawi.

Tropical Cyclone Mocha, in May, was one of the most intense cyclones ever observed in the Bay of Bengal and triggered 1.7 million displacements across the sub-region from Sri Lanka to Myanmar and through India and Bangladesh, and worsened acute food insecurity.

Hurricane Otis intensified to a maximum Category 5 system in a matter of hours – one of the most rapid intensification rates in the satellite era. It hit the Mexican coastal resort of Acapulco on 24 October, causing economic losses estimated at around US$15 billion, and killing at least 47 people.

Extreme heat affected many parts of the world. Some of the most significant were in southern Europe and North Africa, especially in the second half of July. Temperatures in Italy reached 48.2 °C, and record-high temperatures were reported in Tunis (Tunisia) 49.0 °C, Agadir (Morocco) 50.4 °C and Algiers (Algeria) 49.2 °C.

Canada’s wildfire season was the worst on record. The total area burned nationally for the year was 14.9 million hectares, more than seven times the long-term average. The fires also led to severe smoke pollution, particularly in the heavily populated areas of eastern Canada and the north-eastern United States. The deadliest single wildfire of the year was in Hawaii, with at least 100 deaths reported – the deadliest wildfire in the USA for more than 100 years – and estimated economic losses of US$5.6 billion.

The Greater Horn of Africa region, which had been experiencing long-term drought, suffered substantial flooding in 2023, particularly later in the year. The flooding displaced 1.8 million people across Ethiopia, Burundi, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Somalia and Kenya in addition to the 3 million people displaced internally or across borders by the five consecutive seasons of drought in Ethiopia, Kenya, Djibouti, and Somalia.

Long-term drought persisted in north-western Africa and parts of the Iberian Peninsula, as well as parts of central and southwest Asia. It intensified in many parts of Central America and South America. In northern Argentina and Uruguay, rainfall from January to August was 20 to 50% below average, leading to crop losses and low water storage levels.

Socioeconomic impacts

Weather and climate hazards exacerbated challenges with food security, population displacements and impacts on vulnerable populations. They continued to trigger new, prolonged, and secondary displacement and increased the vulnerability of many who were already uprooted by complex multi-causal situations of conflict and violence.

One of the essential components for reducing the impact of disasters is to have effective multi-hazard early warning systems. The Early Warnings for All initiative seeks to ensure that everyone is protected by early warning systems by the end of 2027. Development and implementation of local disaster risk reduction strategies have increased since the adoption of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.

The report cites figures that the number of people who are acutely food insecure worldwide has more than doubled, from 149 million people before the COVID-19 pandemic to 333 million people in 2023 (in 78 monitored countries by the World Food Programme). WFP Global hunger levels remained unchanged from 2021 to 2022. However, these are still far above pre-COVID 19 pandemic levels: in 2022, 9.2% of the global population (735.1 million people) were undernourished. Protracted conflicts, economic downturns, and high food prices, further exacerbated by high costs of agricultural inputs driven by ongoing and widespread conflict around the world, are at the root of high global food insecurity levels. This is aggravated by the effects of climate and weather extremes. In southern Africa, for example, the passage of Cyclone Freddy in February 2023 affected Madagascar, Mozambique, southern Malawi, and Zimbabwe. Flooding submerged extensive agricultural areas and inflicted severe damage on crops and the economy.

Renewable energy generation, primarily driven by the dynamic forces of solar radiation, wind and the water cycle, has surged to the forefront of climate action for its potential to achieve decarbonization targets.

Worldwide, a substantial energy transition is already underway. In 2023, renewable capacity additions increased by almost 50% from 2022, for a total of 510 gigawatts (GW). Such growth marks the highest rate observed in the past two decades and indicates, demonstrates the potential to achieve the clean energy goal set at COP28 to triple renewable energy capacity globally to reach 11 000 GW by 2030.

Climate Financing

In 2021/2022, global climate-related finance flows reached almost USD 1.3 trillion, nearly doubling compared to 2019/2020 levels. Even so, tracked climate finance flows represent only approximately 1% of global GDP, according to the Climate Policy Initiative.

There is a large financing gap. In an average scenario, for a 1.5°C pathway, annual climate finance investments need to grow by more than six times, reaching almost USD 9 trillion by 2030 and a further USD 10 trillion through to 2050.  

The cost of inaction is even higher. Aggregating over the period 2025-2100, the total cost of inaction is estimated at USD 1,266 trillion; that is, the difference in losses under a business-as-usual scenario and those incurred within a 1.5°C pathway. This figure is, however, likely to be a dramatic underestimate.

Adaptation finance continues to be insufficient. Though adaptation finance reached an all-time high of USD 63 billion in 2021/2022, the global adaptation financing gap is widening, falling well short of the estimated USD 212 billion per year needed up to 2030 in developing countries alone.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for promoting international cooperation in atmospheric science and meteorology.

WMO monitors weather, climate, and water resources and provides support to its Members in forecasting and disaster mitigation. The organization is committed to advancing scientific knowledge and improving public safety and well-being through its work.

For further information, please contact:

• Clare Nullis WMO media officer [email protected] +41 79 709 13 97
• WMO Strategic Communication Office Media Contact [email protected]

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Abstract 5491: Mapping ovarian cancer spatial organization uncovers immune evasion drivers at the genetic, cellular, and tissue level

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Karmen Aguirre , Christine Yiwen-Yeh , Olivia Laveroni; Abstract 5491: Mapping ovarian cancer spatial organization uncovers immune evasion drivers at the genetic, cellular, and tissue level. Cancer Res 15 March 2024; 84 (6_Supplement): 5491. https://doi.org/10.1158/1538-7445.AM2024-5491

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Immune exclusion and evasion are central barriers to the success of immunotherapies and cell therapies in solid tumors. Here we applied single cell spatial and perturbational transcriptomics alongside clinical,histological, and genomic profiling to elucidate immune exclusion and evasion in high-grade serous tubo-ovarian cancer (HGSC). Using high-plex spatial transcriptomics we profiled more than 1.3 million cells from 95 tumors and 60 patients, revealing generalizable principles in HGSC tumor tissue organization.Our data demonstrates that effector T cells resist stroma-mediated trapping and sequestration. However, upon infiltration into the tumor, T cells, as well as Natural Killer (NK) cells, preferentially co-localize only with a subset of malignant cells that manifest a distinct transcriptional cell state. The latter consists of dozens of co-regulated genes and is repressed under various copy number alterations. Performing CRISPR Perturb-seq screens in ovarian cancer cells, we identified functionally diverse genetic perturbations - including knockout of the insulin sensing repressor PTPN1 and the epigenetic regulator ACTR8 - that de-repress the proposed immunogenic malignant cell state identified in patients and indeed sensitize ovarian cancer cells to T cell and NK cell cytotoxicity. Taken together, our study uncovered a profound connection between somatic genetic aberrations, malignant cell transcriptional dysregulation, and immune evasion at the cellular and tissue level, allowing us to identify targets that reprogram malignant cell states as an avenue to unleash anti-tumor immune responses.

Citation Format: Karmen Aguirre, Christine Yiwen-Yeh, Olivia Laveroni. Mapping ovarian cancer spatial organization uncovers immune evasion drivers at the genetic, cellular, and tissue level [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2024; Part 1 (Regular Abstracts); 2024 Apr 5-10; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2024;84(6_Suppl):Abstract nr 5491.

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One Thing Most Countries Have in Common: Unsafe Air

New research found that fewer than 10 percent of countries and territories met World Health Organization guidelines for particulate matter pollution last year.

By Delger Erdenesanaa

Only 10 countries and territories out of 134 achieved the World Health Organization’s standards for a pervasive form of air pollution last year, according to air quality data compiled by IQAir , a Swiss company.

The pollution studied is called fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, because it refers to solid particles less than 2.5 micrometers in size: small enough to enter the bloodstream. PM2.5 is the deadliest form of air pollution, leading to millions of premature deaths each year .

“Air pollution and climate change both have the same culprit, which is fossil fuels,” said Glory Dolphin Hammes, the CEO of IQAir’s North American division.

The World Health Organization sets a guideline that people shouldn’t breathe more than 5 micrograms of fine particulate matter per cubic meter of air, on average, throughout a year. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently proposed tightening its standard from 12 to 9 micrograms per cubic meter.

The few oases of clean air that meet World Health Organization guidelines are mostly islands, as well as Australia and the northern European countries of Finland and Estonia. Of the non-achievers, where the vast majority of the human population lives, the countries with the worst air quality were mostly in Asia and Africa.

Where some of the dirtiest air is found

The four most polluted countries in IQAir’s ranking for 2023 — Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and Tajikistan — are in South and Central Asia.

Air quality sensors in almost a third of the region’s cities reported concentrations of fine particulate matter that were more than 10 times the WHO guideline. This was a proportion “vastly exceeding any other region,” the report’s authors wrote.

The researchers pointed to vehicle traffic, coal and industrial emissions, particularly from brick kilns, as major sources of the region’s pollution. Farmers seasonally burning their crop waste contribute to the problem, as do households burning wood and dung for heat and cooking.

China reversed recent gains

One notable change in 2023 was a 6.3 percent increase in China’s air pollution compared with 2022, after at least five years of improvement. Beijing experienced a 14 percent increase in PM2.5 pollution last year.

The national government announced a “war against pollution” in 2014 and had been making progress ever since. But the sharpest decline in China’s PM2.5 pollution happened in 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic forced much of the country’s economic activity to slow or shut down. Ms. Dolphin Hammes attributed last year’s uptick to a reopening economy.

And challenges remain: Eleven cities in China reported air pollution levels last year that exceeded the WHO guidelines by 10 times or more. The worst was Hotan, Xinjiang.

Significant gaps in the data

IQAir researchers analyze data from more than 30,000 air quality monitoring stations and sensors across 134 countries, territories and disputed regions. Some of these monitoring stations are run by government agencies, while others are overseen by nonprofit organizations, schools, private companies and citizen scientists.

There are large gaps in ground-level air quality monitoring in Africa and the Middle East, including in regions where satellite data show some of the highest levels of air pollution on Earth.

As IQAir works to add data from more cities and countries in future years, “the worst might be yet to come in terms of what we’re measuring,” Ms. Dolphin Hammes said.

Wildfire smoke: a growing problem

Although North America is one of the cleaner regions in the world, in 2023 wildfires burned 4 percent of Canada’s forests, an area about half the size of Germany, and significantly impaired air quality.

Usually, North America’s list of most polluted cities is dominated by the United States. But last year, the top 13 spots all went to Canadian cities, many of them in Alberta.

In the United States, cities in the Upper Midwest and the Mid-Atlantic states also got significant amounts of PM2.5 pollution from wildfire smoke that drifted across the border.

Risks of short-term exposure

It’s not just chronic exposure to air pollution that harms people’s health.

For vulnerable people like the very young and old, or those with underlying illnesses, breathing in large amounts of fine particulate pollution for just a few hours or days can sometimes be deadly. About 1 million premature deaths per year can be attributed to short-term PM2.5 exposure, according to a recent global study published in The Lancet Planetary Health.

The problem is worst in East and South Asia, as well as in West Africa.

Without accounting for short-term exposures, “we might be underestimating the mortality burden from air pollution,” said Yuming Guo, a professor at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, and one of the study’s authors.

U.S. disparities widen

Within individual countries, air pollution and its health effects aren’t evenly distributed.

Air quality in the United States has generally been improving since the Clean Air Act of the 1970s. Last decade, premature deaths from PM2.5 exposure declined to about 49,400 in 2019, down from about 69,000 in 2010.

But progress has happened faster in some communities than in others. Racial and ethnic disparities in air pollution deaths have grown in recent years, according to a national study published this month .

The census tracts in the United States with the fewest white residents have about 32 percent higher rates of PM2.5-related deaths, compared with those with the most white residents. This disparity in deaths per capita has increased by 16 percent between 2010 and 2019.

The study examined race and ethnicity separately, and found the disparity between the census tracts with the most and least Hispanic residents grew even more, by 40 percent.

In IQAir’s rankings, the United States is doing much better than most other countries. But studies that dig deeper show air quality is still an issue, said Gaige Kerr, a research scientist at George Washington University and the lead author of the disparities paper published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. “There’s still a lot of work to do,” he said.

Dr. Kerr’s research showed that mortality rates were highest on the Gulf Coast and in the Ohio River Valley, in areas dominated by petrochemical and manufacturing industries. He also noted that researchers have seen a slight uptick in rates of PM2.5-related deaths starting around 2016, particularly in the Western states, likely because of increasing wildfires.

Delger Erdenesanaa is a reporter covering climate and the environment and a member of the 2023-24 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their careers. More about Delger Erdenesanaa

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