| Learning Objective #1: Identify the importance of organizational culture in the use of research findings by health care practitioners | |||
| Learning Objective #2: Understand one process by which organizational culture influences the use of research findings |
Purpose: To discuss an approach to how organizational culture shapes the use of research findings by health care professionals.
Methods: Through an examination of the definitions, epistemologies and theoretical assumptions influential in the organizational culture literature we propose an approach for understanding the process through which organizational culture influences the use of research.
Findings: Increased research use by health care professionals has come to be of growing interest and importance. Indeed, though pointed to as significant in influencing the use of research in clinical practice, organizational culture is not well understood. In nursing, little research on organizational culture has been done.
Very recently nurse scholars have begun to more thoroughly investigate the importance of the organizational context in facilitating knowledge utilization. However, the nursing literature has not yet been unable to provide specific detail as to how and why the organizational context is important.
Using the cultural dynamics model from organization sciences, we claim that organizational culture shapes research use through the co-occurring processes of manifestation, realization, symbolization and interpretation. It is through examining this complex process that an understanding of the influence of culture on the use of research findings can be acquired.
Conclusion: The process through which organizational culture shapes research use has not been described in the literature and only recently have scholars begun to question the influence that organizational culture has on the process of using research findings. Organizational culture guides and shapes the behaviour and attitudes of organization members by providing the context for meaning making within the organization. The cultural dynamics model opens up current health care system realities to demonstrate how organizational culture may stymie the use of research. Cultural dynamics provides an initial approach to begin to understand the complex process through which organizational culture shapes the use of research.
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