The Role of Personality, Motivation, and Organizational Culture in Determining Managerial Competencies for Primary Care Managers in Southern Thailand

Public health sector is an important portion of any country's public service as it contributes to the quality of life of its citizens. Researches on managerial competency of public health sector managers especially primary care managers based in rural centre are few despite the importance of these managers to health organizations. It is therefore imperative to study job competency on this group since there is a dearth of literature on this issue. The present study thus aims to achieve the following objectives: (1) to identify the critical managerial competencies, (2) to determine the relationship between personality/motivation and managerial competencies, and (3) to determine the moderating effect of organizational culture on the relationship between personality and managerial competencies. To meet the projected aims, the present study employed a quantitative approach. A survey was carried out among 358 primary care managers, who were selected using a cluster sampling technique from rural areas of five southern provinces in Thailand. The instrument measures the personality construct, motivation at work, organizational culture, and managerial competency. Factor analysis and multiple regression analysis were employed to examine their dimensionality, ensure internal consistency and validity, as well as to test the hypotheses. The finding focuses on identifying the critical managerial competencies of primary care managers. Based on the Delphi technique and factor analysis used to verify and validate the competency construct, six areas of managerial competencies have been identified: (1) visionary leadership; (2) assessment, planning, and evaluation; (3) promotion health and preventing disease; (4) information management; (5) partnership and collaboration; and (6) communication. The study also focuses on the determinants of managerial competencies. Both personality and motivation are found to significantly influence primary care managers' managerial competency. The higher the conscientiousness and the openness levels, and the lower the neuroticism level managers possess, the higher managerial competency the managers demonstrate. Both intrinsic and extrinsic factors are also found to be positively associated with managerial competencies. However, in general, motivation has a stronger influence on managerial competency than personality. In addition, the present study revealed the moderating effect of organizational culture on the relationship between personality and managerial competencies. In particular, the study found that managers seemed to be demonstrating the highest level of competencies when they scored high on conscientiousness and worked in a culture that emphasizes a high humanistic culture, high leadership culture, and low prescriptive culture. In humanistic oriented culture, whether managers possess low or high conscientiousness, they always demonstrate very outstanding partnership and collaboration competency, which is even higher than those in a low humanistic culture. The implications of the present study on future research and practice are discussed, as so too the limitations of the research