ABSTRACT
The organisational climate and culture constitute the system of broad social contextual factors that describe the unique character of each organisation and that profoundly influence the behaviour of those who come into contact with or make up organisations. Managers have been particularly interested in how to ‘manage’ culture considerable resources have been spent trying to ‘shape’ organisational cultures and create, for example, ‘a service culture’, ‘an open culture’ or ‘a people culture’. A closely related concept to organisational culture is ‘organisational climate’. Central to most, if all, models of organisational behaviour are employees’ perceptions of the work environment, referred to generally as ‘organisational climate’. The rational goal approach emphasises productivity and goal achievement. The open systems model emphasises the interaction and adaptation of the organisation in its environment. Lack of methodological rigour and sophistication of design, absence of standardised objective measures for culture performance, and the small number of studies conducted in hospital settings mean that these links remain obscure.
