Organizational Culture in Health Care - Term Paper Example

? Organizational Culture in Health Care Introduction Originally the term, culture refers to the fundamental beliefs, values and codes of practice that dictate what a society is. Culture also refers to an evident, powerful force in any society (Smith, 2011). It consists of its members’ shared values, symbols; beliefs, and actions. Culture guides individual judgments at an unconscious level. As a result, it carries a potent result on an organization’s well being and achievements (Connor, 2009). The traditions of a community, the picture of its members, the factors that make it differ from other communities, stands to be its norms. Culture portrays a powerful subject and replicates the understandings that individuals normally attribute to situations, and answers that they apply to common issues. The lack of a universal culture portrays whether organizations have same or varying cultures within them. Organizations form a significant element of a society (Smith, 2011). People get into them from the surrounding communities and take their traditions with them. The fact is that organizations can also have cultures of their own as they possess the paradoxical quality of being both parts of and apart from the community. This paper will come up with a proposal of ways to improve management in organizational culture with a view of the health care system. Proposal While culture proves to be a factor for many business success stories or down falls, an optimistic custom could be a principal in creating a competitive advancement over businesses which a firm competes with (Connor, 2009). Individuals come from different ethnic backgrounds and traditional customs, have a variety of behaviors and have been shaped by a varied range of practices (Connor, 2009). An organizational culture should insist on strong values; this would only help the society grow positively. The purpose here is to encourage firms to adapt a positive organizational culture whose advantages will be discussed later. When people from various backgrounds come together in a work setting, these factors will show themselves in infinite different kinds of ways. As time goes by a central set of norms emerge, dictating the way in which work seems to be accomplished within the company (Kinsey, 2011). These happenings create an idea of organizational or corporate culture. Organizational culture only began to be learned and respected in the USA within the past twenty years. An influential writing referred to as the Corporate Cultures: The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life made familiar the idea of fostering, setting up, and understanding a positive organizational norm (Kinsey, 2011). In less than twenty years, since the time that this book became available, tradition has gone from a rather unknown notion to being widely recognized as the central role in organizational development. Literally many books and thousands of pieces have been dedicated to the subject. It falls under clarity that corporate culture has become a vital concern for high-ranked management, and, therefore, it brings value to set up new ways of improving culture within an organization or a society (Kinsey, 2011). Problem statement Organizations normally find themselves entrenched in the wider public context, but they also fall as societies of their own with distinct rules and values. Despite the emphasis on organizational change, culture seems to be overlooked in the health system reforms. Indeed, recent years have witnessed culture and the urge for changes in culture written in certified policy documents. Such documents include the “First Class Service” and the implementation suggestions following “The National Health Service Plan”. They speak of cultures of success, no-blame cultures, elevated trust and study cultures as attractive destinations for a reformed health care system (Lyman, 2012). Even more, different types of poor cultures, for example, culture of secrecy, macho culture and blame culture, regularly become the judgments of issues when looking into organizational failures. The most notorious of these judgers refers to as the “group culture” written in the Kennedy findings on Bristol paper 12 (Lyman, 2012). Nurses and doctors have been viewed as a means of bridging the culture in health care (Simpson, 2007). Researchers characterize the migration of registered nurses and doctors as one of the primary, contributing factors to their recent scarcity. In an attempt to employ and hold a sufficient number of qualified nurses and doctors, healthcare providers, nations have begun to hire internationally learned nurses and doctors to cater for baseline patient care urges (Simpson, 2007). These globally trained nurses and doctors bring up another vital concern for healthcare that has not been investigated by researchers. This issue comes as the growing diversity of local societies through globalization, and immigration trends continues to rise. The rising multicultural societies need healthcare service to cater for the diverse patient care needs if they seek to reach health mission and quality patient-centered concern (Simpson, 2007). Researchers say, “Considerations and sympathy create the main center components of thriving clinical performance” and healthcare practitioners seem to become more challenged to appreciate and sympathize with multicultural patient desires (Simpson, 2007). Thus, healthcare groups need to find ways to cater for their cultural fitness, which may be attained through delegating workforce plans. Advantages of organizational culture An organization that can keep a positive culture will enjoy many benefits. When members of an organization come to terms with its traditions, the work atmosphere will tend to be more pleasant, which improves morale (Robin, 2011). This follows an improved level of teamwork, sharing of information, and creating of new ideas. The result, an increased interaction among workers will trigger learning and continuous improvement because information will now flow more freely throughout the organization. Additionally, such a culture assists to draw and maintain top employees (Robin, 2011). This puts emphasizes to culture as a primary determinant of the willingness of an employer. When taking into consideration organizational culture, it is necessary to deem actual organizations that have showed the positive effects that proper organizational culture can have. Comprehensive structural improvement may be significant because these structures set the background within which individuals relate; it communicates key messages concerning what is significant. In essence, organizational cultures assist to shape the ways in which structural systems act out (Robin, 2011). This creates a significant interplay linking the formal and the informal structures that create systems such as the National Health Service. The latest findings from the research agencies seem to know this. An organizational culture can be strong or feeble. A strong organizational culture could be one which most of its participants have the same basic thinking and principles concerning the organization (Schein, 1996). The workers in this organization may follow the apparent rules and right procedures that form the basis of the organization, even if those values are not openly announced by the organization. This can be priceless for setting up a group where every member has the same goals. Working as one to increase competence or, perhaps, contact with management could be a few of the goals. Organizational culture creates completion. Organizations have always changed so as to keep up with the shifting market and able to rise above the competition. This also creates a competitive edge against their competitors who will always guess what they are up to (Schein, 1996). Disadvantages of organizational culture An organizational culture can be strong or weak. The disadvantages of an organizational culture follow below. Cultural Disparities In the presence, of mergers, it will bring disagreements in corporate cultures thus it is vital for organizations to have the same opinion on the means that will be used to come up with decisions. This may hinder development of the organization (Smith, 2011). Employment Loss Some people turn out to be uncooperative when new technology is brought or when mergers replace them. The two factors tend to replace workers and creates a potential threat to the organization’s future. Many organizations will tend to suspend these employees because training them tends to be costly (Smith, 2011). Communication Decrease It leads to a drop in communication within a corporate in the sense that if the corporate seems to be constantly changing its organizations hierarchy, communication will go down. The reason behind a drop in communication being that workers cannot maintain the demands of different individuals. With communication collapses, quarrels and conflicts may arise (Smith, 2011). Clientele Reduction When some organizations unite or transform their brand name, some clients will be left out due to lack of information about the brand name change. Other clients may not be willing to adapt with the change and may choose to go take their affairs some other place. This could also be disadvantageous to the organization if the policies become more valuable to the workers than the definite aims of the organization. New employees joining the organization will consciously or unconsciously adapt into the presented culture, making improvements hard to come by. With the above advantages and disadvantages, organizations should see that change is more profitable for them and their employees. They should adopt the strong law of, “change or die,” (Schein, 2010). Solutions to detrimental dilemmas with organizational cultures It is true for individuals to say that the extent at which an organization emphasizes its individualistic and collectivistic principles in view of the different types of cultures of its workers will determine the extent of communication in the firm (Lyman, 2011). Through these solutions, purported benefits of cultural diversity will emerge in organizations. Research pulled from diverse fields proves that benefits will arise with the adaptation of organizational culture in the corporate world. There ought to be an increase in the variant views and approaches to work that members from different background cultures could bring to the organization. For example, a cognitive and experimental disparity may add to the views available within the corporate and facilitate clarifying, organizing and combing new approaches to benefit the corporate. Even more, work groups made up of different cultural people can create a network of communication with regards to the diverse individuals. This diverse source of information creates novel information that can be incorporated to new thoughts (Smith, 2011). Research proves that coming together of many cultures to form one uniform culture seems to be beneficial in that it supports importance of diversity (Schein, 2010). This shows that instead of finding this diversity a challenge of creating an exceptional working environment, workers should use it as a means of creating an achieving environment within the organization. Homogeneous work groups should be keen to improve on their social skills; it would ease any communication issue between the diverse workers and in essence, mean no conflicts (Connor, 2010). Individuals whose disparity from other workers come in terms of race, age, education or tenure, feel less comfortable while working in the corporate. Issues like age and sex seem impossible to tackle (Simpson, 2007). It would be advisable for organizations to consider regrouping their staff with these factors so as to improve their efficiency. A fact proves that people of the same age group reason alike. Organizations should try to resolute these issues by taking into considerations how disparities in corporate culture restrict how people from different cultures approach and sort out their issues (Simpson, 2007). Organization should note that focus on individuals only or a certain group of people would lead to a decline in its members. Organizational Culture and Patients Attempts to describe organizational culture have lead to a number of different advances. Some center on manifestations which are idols and scoundrels, rituals, rites, mythologies and legends that inhabit organizations. Culture seems to be publicly constructed, and replicated meaning that it is mainly circulated interaction and this results in acceptance of the situation (Robin, 2011). In the healthcare setting, there stands to be many opposing terminologies in the culture of an organization. The opposing needs of practitioners, families, patients, institutions, regulators among others, create many discrepancies and confusing messages. In addition to the problem of hierarchy mentioned in disadvantages of organizational culture, there exists “silos,” where each role or unit functions by itself, without considering the full effects of its actions on other individuals. Many have stated that a norm of blame has been persistent in the healthcare sector (Smith, 2011). Because medication was often thought as the job of one physician or other expert working with one patient, when something did not go as planned the automatic reaction meant trying to agree on whose fault it was and, often, to punish them. This shame and pointing fingers approach lead to hiding instead of reporting of mistakes, and thus created the contrast of a norm of safety (Smith, 2011). Current efforts have tried to transform this and persuade individuals to report issues rather than isolate them, so they can be looked into. A straight reasoning healthcare organization keeps in mind that their primary reason for existence falls under taking care of patients, and they ought to keep them as protected and healthy as much as possible. Management and organizational cultures Proper organizational culture reflects an image for the organization which top managements would like to achieve. The representation of the organization differs according the way others view it. Even in a corporate with strong traditions, the social detachment linking senior management and junior workers can be extraordinarily broad (Kinsey, 2011). Traditions tend to be hardly intended or predictable; they appear as the accepted products of social relations and grow and emerge over time. So is it legitimate to agree to such an idea of culture to give way to a version of managed agreement? Researchers argue that cultures can be molded to cater for everyone. They have in mind the notion that every corporate has the capability to change themselves from within. Even if norms can be managed it still stands as a thing. They have created a harsh challenge to what they refer to as corporate culture. This refers to the willingness for culture to be endorsed as a mechanism for strengthening corporate affluence (Kinsey, 2011). Management should seek traditional modifications by shaping the actions that they hope to promote, and then support the desired culture by engaging in ways such as coming up with creative statements or slogans (Kinsey, 2011). All this will be in view of celebrating worker’s successes or promotions. Ways like distributing newsletters and films that strengthen their desired norms, employing new workers into the organization that do not have an issue with the desired culture, varying ways of dressing, and so on. It is significant to keep in mind that it will always be hard to judge if the culture rates as satisfactory or evil for the organization adopted by each management. What usually matters is how they are included with the organization’s overall plans (Kinsey, 2011). Conclusion Culture extends the range of management reasoning and organizational culture. This culture range has been one of the most lasting highlighted words in trendy managements. The belief behind this follows that organizational culture appears to create unity, and this strongly appeals to the management’s concern. Their main concern falls with creating an elegant image of the organization for the community’s interests. Perhaps the most prominent culture creates the real meaning of the organization. It relates almost with the idea of personality in relation to the person and this acute sense of what an organization portrays. The main missions, its core values, look to become an essential asset of the modern organization. There is the crossing query of whether or not organizational norms can be managed. Academics concerns in appreciating and analyzing culture tend to disagree with that notion. While there may be no ultimate answer to query, the essential and the managerial sides of the discussion should inform and renew each other, so it remains significant to look at both. References Connor, R. (2009). How did that happen? Holding people accountable for results the positive, principled way. Westminster: Portfolio Trade Publishers. Connors, R. (2010). The oz principle: Getting results through individual and organizational accountability. Westminster: Portfolio Trade Publishers. Kinsey, C. (2011). The silent language of leaders: How body language can help or hurt how you lead. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Lyman, A. (2012). The trustworthy leader: Leveraging the power of trust to transform your organization. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Robin, J. (2011). The great workplace poster. San Francisco: Pfeiffer Publishers. Robin, J. (2011). The great workplace: How to build it, how to keep it, and why it matters. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Schein, E. (1996). Organizational culture and leadership: J-B US non-franchise leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Schein, E. (2010). Organizational Culture and Leadership: The Jossey-Bass Business and Management Series. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Simpson, R. (2007). Classic readings in organizational behavior. California: Wadsworth Publishers. Smith, T. (2011). Change the culture, change the game: The breakthrough strategy for energizing your Organization and creating accountability for results. Westminster: Portfolio Trade Publishers. Read More