The new generation of executive performance research: its implications for health care

Much recent attention in the business press has focused on how executives think. That is a radical departure from the traditional research emphasis on simple behavior. This article reviews current research to document what is different about the way successful executives think. Many common assumptions about executives being rational, deliberate, and systematic have been disproven. Instead, executives are found to think in ways not suspected by most researchers. As health care enters times of rapid change, lessons learned from executives in other sectors can offer much to our understanding of executive performance. Current documents from the academic and popular business presses are reviewed in this article.