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CULTURE |
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Bottom Line |
“Culture is the set of important understandings (often unstated) that members of a community share in common”. (Sathe, 1985, p.6) Source: Martin, J. (2002) Organizational Culture. Mapping the terrain. Sage |
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Significance
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An organisation can be said to consist of a structure, systems and a culture. Health services change structure all the time and increasingly focus on systems but still retain the same culture. The culture of an organization is defined in almost as many ways as team leadership, perhaps not surprisingly as the two terms are interwoven with one of the key responsibilities of the leader being to shape the culture of their organisation.
The culture of an organisation is the set of beliefs and assumptions that influence how people feel and behave. A large organisation can have many different cultures, pediatric departments have a different culture from trauma departments and within one hospital neighbouring wards can have very different cultures even though both are doing the same job. |
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Examples of how the term is used; Extract from the Better Value Healthcare 21st Century Glossary |
“The culture of a group can now be defined as a pattern of shared basic assumptions that was learned by a group as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems.” Source: Schein, E.H. (2004) Organizational Culture and Leadership. John Wiley & Sons Inc. (p.17).
“An organization’s culture defines what goes on in its workplace. Loosely defined, culture is the soft, imprecise, fuzzy stuff of everyday life. Within any company, it is what people think and believe and what drives daily priorities. Leadership and a company’s culture are inextricably intertwined.”
“Although the notion of organisational culture is now frequently invoked in the organisations and management literature, it remains an elusive concept, fraught with competing interpretations and eluding a consensual definition.” … “despite such diverse views, two broad schools of thought can be distinguished. Firstly, there is the family of approaches that regard culture as something that an organisation is” … “in contrast, there is the group of approaches that conceive of culture as something that an organisation has: aspects or variables of the organisation that can be isolated, described, and manipulated.” Source: Davies, H.T.O., Nutley, S., Mannion, R. (2000) Organisational culture and quality of health. Quality in Health Care. 9: 111-9 (p. 111-2). Source: Mannion, R., Davies, H.T.O., Marshall, M.N. (2005) Cultures for Performance in Health Care. Open University Press. (p.1).
“Culture refers to what stands behind and guides behaviour rather than the behaviour as such.” |
