Organizational Culture Affects Nursing Practice and Care

Organizational culture affects nursing practice and care across several dimensions. From job satisfaction to organizational effectiveness to patient perceptions of care, the culture of nursing organization has widespread implications. As an employee in a psychiatric hospital, I have observed that the cultural organization among staff has far reaching effects that touch nearly all facets in the workplace. The culture of the hospital I work at would be considered constructive, positive and supportive, which results in beneficial results for staff and patients.

A study conducted by McDaniel and Stumpf (1995) indicated several positive associations between constructive culture within nursing organizations and high morale, employee satisfaction and retention, as well as decreased patient mortality. Culture is understood by these authors as an integral component to any nursing organization, and culture in this context is understood as commonalities in thought, belief and behavior among all the staff within a nursing unit (McDaniel & Stumpf, 1995). These commonalities transcend racial and traditional cultural differences to unify staff in regards to expectations and norms of the nursing organization, and it is these factors that influence the behavior of individual members of the unit to work toward promoting values focusing on betterment of the organization and patient care (McDaniel & Stumpf, 1995). The actual racial and cultural backgrounds of the employees within my workplace are diverse, including African-American, Asian, and Caribbean individuals. However, the commonalities beyond these cultural differences add to the richness of the organizational culture within the hospital, resulting in open-mindedness, understanding, and a more positive work environment resulting in improved patient care.

The manner in which nurses internalize and assess their organizational culture greatly affects the quality of care provided to patients. The hospital in which I work has a cultural environment that promotes unity, positive morale, empathy, and understanding. These factors are internalized by nurses, which results in great job satisfaction and ultimately greater contentment when in the workplace. The effects of this positive work environment are far reaching, extending to the care received by patients. An investigation conducted by Tzeng et al. (2002) examined nurses' internalization and assessment of organizational culture, and looked at how this impacted patient care. A chain reaction of sorts was discovered in the results of the study. The results demonstrated that job satisfaction was positively and significantly predicted by the strength of the organizational culture. Job satisfaction was furthermore found to significantly predict the satisfaction of inpatients (Tzeng et al., 2002). Therefore, it may be suggested that efforts toward improving organizational culture are valuable, and can have effects beyond the immediate or the obvious.