The associations between organizational culture, organizational structure and quality management in European hospitals

Many cultural aspects of health-care organizations are understood to be important in determining the quality of patient care—whether through fostering excellence or contributing to failure. Organizational culture (OC) represents the shared beliefs, values, attitudes, norms of behaviour of people in an organization and the established organizational routines, traditions, ceremonies and reward systems. 

OC defines legitimate and acceptable actions within an organization and encompasses the meanings that professionals and staff assign to their work. It is the social and normative ‘glue’ that binds people into collective enterprise; and it defines ‘the way things are done around here’.

OC s vary. There is international interest in using OC as a lever for health system reform. Few studies have explored the relationships among OC, organizational management structure (OS) and implementation of quality improvement activities.

In this paper the authors explore the role of OC and OS as influences on the implementation of quality improvement in European hospitals.