Does organisational culture influence health care performance? A review of the evidence

Abstract

There is some evidence to suggest that organisational culture may be a relevant factor in health care performance, yet articulating the nature of that relationship proves difficult. Simple relationships such as 'strong culture leads to good performance' are not supported by this review. Instead, the evidence suggests a more contingent relationship, in that those aspects of performance valued within different cultures may be enhanced within organisations that exhibit those cultural traits. A striking finding is the difficulty in defining and operationalising both 'culture' and 'performance' as variables that are conceptually and practically distinct. Considerably greater methodological ingenuity will be required to unravel the relationship(s) between organisational culture(s) and performance(s). Current policy prescriptions, which seek service improvements through cultural transformation, are in need of a more secure evidential base.

Innovative Behavior: Relations with Developmental Culture, Psychological Empowerment, Distributive Justice and Organizational Learning Capacity

“…As a sub dimension of organizational culture, a developmental culture is based on development, adaptability, innovation and creativity and positively contributes to employee motivation specifically on learning (Scott et al, 2003;Lok et al, 2005).…”

Influence of organisational culture on the implementation of health sector reforms in low- and middle-income countries: a qualitative interpretive review

“…Some authors specifically suggested that challenges resulted from the influence of health system software on reform implementation [9,12,13]. The software elements of the health system refer to the intangible aspects that govern functions and relationships within the health system such as ideas, values, interests, power and norms [10] as well as organisational culture [9].…”

Hospital management teams – reflections on organizational and medical specialization cultures

“…[12] Organizational culture relates to the assumptions, values, attitudes and beliefs that are shared among significant groups within an organization. [13,14] Culture concerns the common, accepted ways of doing things within an organization, as well as the shared, individual ways of each of its members of making sense of the organization. Organizational culture varies across the hospital organization and some of this variation is attributable to the variety of organizational characteristics and measures of performance.…”