Institutional theory and the power of the leaders of hospitals in Portugal, part III: comparison with other activity sectors

Abstract

Introduction: This article constitutes the third part of a series of published papers on the perceptions of human resources on the power of leaders. The study maintained its base on the framework of institutional theory. The objectives consisted of statistically determine if, in Portugal, the phenomenon associated with how employees perceive the power held by top managers can be generalized to other activities, having into account the results obtained for employees of hospitals, and whether for other sectors or activities, the absence of differences in perceptions evidenced by employees of hospitals, according to gender, remains valid. Methods: For this third part of the investigation, 1.071 valid responses to a new survey by questionnaire were collected, potentially covering employees from all sectors of activity. The test of Mann-Whitney was used to determine, with statistical significance, the presence or absence of higher values in different subsets of employees examined. Results: All the values obtained for the measurement variable, whether subdivided by sector of activity or by gender, correspond to high values (between 5 and 8 points). Discussion and Conclusions: It was possible to determine the existence of statistically significant differences between the various groups of employees, depending on the sector of activity, but no evidence was found of statistically significant differences in the quantification of the measurement variable, according to gender.