The primary purpose of this study is to document the psychometric properties of the revised Nursing Work Index (NWI-R) in the context of a large Canadian sample of registered nurses. A self-administered survey containing the NWI-R was completed by 17,965 registered nurses working in 415 hospitals in three Canadian provinces. Using exploratory principal components analysis, with a forced one-factor solution, the practice environment index was obtained. In addition, key assumptions were tested from previous work about the rationale for the aggregation of NWI-R responses. In the Canadian context the one-factor solution provides a parsimonious index of the practice environment of registered nurses working in acute care hospitals. Further work is needed to determine the predictive capability of this index and its relevance to cross-national organizational contexts.

Measuring the hospital practice environment: a Canadian context.

Aim. This paper reports a critical review of nursing organizational culture research studies with the objectives of: (1) reviewing theoretical and methodological characteristics of the studies and (2) drawing inferences specific to the state of knowledge in this field.

Background.  Organizational culture is regarded as significant in influencing research use in clinical practice yet it is not understood how culture shapes practitioners’ behaviours. Only one review of this empirical literature in nursing has been completed.

Method.  Using selected computerized databases, published nursing research studies in English that examine organizational culture were accessed. Organizational culture studies were categorized using Hatch's three perspectives on organizational culture: (1) modern, (2) symbolic-interpretive and (3) postmodern. The review was conducted in 2005.

Results.  Twenty-nine studies were in the final data set. Results pointed to variations in cultural definitions and incorporation of organizational sciences theory. In classifying the studies, modern perspectives dominated (n = 22), symbolic-interpretive approaches were an emerging group (n = 6) and one study was unclassifiable. Our results expand current cultural instrument reviews by pinpointing tools that have been previously overlooked and by identifying ongoing theoretical and methodological challenges for researchers.

Conclusion.  An exclusive reliance on modernistic approaches in organizational culture research cannot yield a complete understanding of the phenomenon. Rather, the field could benefit from a variety of cultural approaches. In a similar vein, researchers need to be mindful of the terminology and the unit of analysis they use in their research, as these are the two largest research challenges.

https://www.sjsu.edu/people/phyllis.connolly/courses/c17/s1/Scottlitrevorgcul22930511.pdf

Mapping the organizational culture research in nursing: a literature review.

We apply the theoretical frameworks of knowledge transfer and organizational learning, and findings from studies of clinical practice guideline (CPG) implementation in health care, to develop a contingency model of innovation adoption in long-term care (LTC) facilities. Our focus is on a particular type of innovation, CPGs designed to improve the quality of LTC. Our interest in this area is founded on the premise that the ability of LTC organizations to adopt and sustain the use of innovations like CPGs is contingent on the initial capacity these institutions have to learn about them, and on the presence of factors that contribute to capacity building at each stage of innovation adoption. Based on our review of relevant theory, we develop a set of fifteen testable propositions that relate factors operating at the guideline, individual, organizational, and environmental levels in LTC institutions to stages of guideline adoption/transfer. Our model offers insights into the complexities of adopting and sustaining innovations in LTC facilities particularly, in health care organizations specifically, and in service organizations generally.

The contingencies of organizational learning in long-term care: factors that affect innovation adoption

The concept of culture is closely interwoven with the values espoused by a community. Culture is a deep structure that finds expression in people's knowledge, beliefs, convictions, morals, and laws. A few possible ways of approaching the culture of nursing are provided by rituals, gender and power.

Vincent Pm

Papers

Organizational culture: how important is it?