The Association between Philosophical Thinking and Demographic Characteristics of Hospital Managers in Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Iran

Introduction: Philosophical thinking is an activity that focuses on the mind, sensitivity, 
understanding and links between them. Managers with philosophical thinking are able to make 
decisions for the entire organization. They make fewer errors and provide a balance between 
manpower and organization maintenance. Such abilities can be influenced by demographic 
characteristics of the managers. The present paper aimed to examine the philosophical thinking of 
hospital managers as related with their demographic characteristics (type, management, gender). 
Methods: This comparative study was conducted in 2010 on all senior, nursing and office 
managers in Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran. Simple random sampling was 
used to select 5 hospitals from 11 educational hospitals affiliated to Isfahan University of Medical 
Sciences. All managers of the selected hospitals were evaluated using census sampling (n = 80). 
Data was collected by a researcher-made questionnaire of philosophical thinking which was 
designed according to the Smith's model. Independent t-test and analysis of variance (ANOVA) 
were used for statistical analyses. 
Results: Our results showed the score of thinking in men and women to be respectively 74 and 
71 out of 100. All three categories of managers scored almost the same in philosophical thinking. 
Moreover, ANOVA did not show a significant relation between philosophical thinking and 
academic degree (P > 0.05). 
Conclusion: Results of the present study suggested that scores of philosophical thinking of 
managers did not significantly relate with demographic characteristics. In fact, philosophical 
thinking is a skill which all people can possess.