Organisational culture
Workforce and Leadership
Definition. Organisational culture is the pattern of shared basic assumptions, values and norms that shapes how members of an organisation think, feel and behave.
Explanation
Schein (1985) distinguishes visible artefacts, espoused values and underlying assumptions. Health care organisations contain strong professional subcultures, so the culture of a hospital is rarely uniform.
Scott et al. (2003) review instruments for measuring culture in health care, and Braithwaite et al. (2017) found that positive organisational and workplace cultures are consistently associated with better patient outcomes, including lower mortality and higher satisfaction. Safety culture is one specific aspect of the wider organisational culture.
Related concepts
Patient safety culture Psychological safety Change management
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References
Braithwaite, J., Herkes, J., Ludlow, K., Testa, L., & Lamprell, G. (2017). Association between organisational and workplace cultures, and patient outcomes: Systematic review. BMJ Open, 7(11), e017708.
Schein, E. H. (1985). Organizational culture and leadership. Jossey-Bass.
Scott, T., Mannion, R., Davies, H., & Marshall, M. (2003). The quantitative measurement of organizational culture in health care: A review of the available instruments. Health Services Research, 38(3), 923–945.
Cite this entry: Kurutkan, M. N. (2026). Organisational culture. In The Health Topics glossary. https://healthtopic.org/glossary/organisational-culture/
Articles that discuss this concept
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