Analyzing Value Networks for Change Decision Making in a Collaborative Environment With a Case Study in Healthcare

Abstract

Management of Collaborative Networked Organizations faces various challenges in terms of decision-making. Particularly, in complex and multi-player environments, like healthcare, it is not easy to find the roots of low performance processes, and unmet goals. This research provides a framework, as well as associated techniques to analyze the value network, identify problematic actors, and consequently, find the best possible solution to change them. The proposed framework consists of two main components: Analyzing the value network, and Multi-Criteria Decision Making. To analyze the value network of a collaborative environment, in addition to the existing techniques, four complementary components are introduced: Actors’ value interchanges matrix, Value Gantt chart, Identifying problematic actors flowchart, and Actors’ ease of substitution table. Employing these hybrid analyses, decision makers gain a better understanding of the bottlenecks in the value network, current conditions and contributions of the involved actors, and the consequences of considering various alternatives. Then, by applying one of the Multi-Criteria Decision Making methods, and based on pre-defined criteria, possible alternatives are analyzed and outlined. As a proof of concept and validation of the proposed methods, we reviewed a scenario of patient flow and wait times in healthcare. We derive the value network for collaborative processes in a hospital, specify the roles’ of actors, identify the bottlenecks, then rank the solutions, and suggest possible changes to improve the performance of the collaborative environment.