Open Collections

An exploratory study of the relationships among hospital sub-cultures, job involvement, upward striving, organizational commitment, and job satisfaction

University of British Columbia

The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate whether there is any relationship between the strength of the culture in a hospital work group and the job involvement, upward striving, organizational commitment and job satisfaction of the employees within that work group. The conceptual framework for this study is the symbolic frame of reference for understanding organizational behaviour. The concept is described by Bolman and Deal (1984). Two hospitals participated in the study, which provided two data sets. Subjects were employees of certain departments within each of the hospitals. Each subject completed a four-part questionnaire. The first part collected demographic data, part two contained questions on job involvement, upward striving, and organizational commitment, part three focussed on job satisfaction, and part four was the culture strength scale. The culture strength scales were developed separately at each hospital and, therefore, contained items which were relevant to a specific facility. There were two major findings from the study. First, there is a positive relationship between job satisfaction and culture strength. Results at both hospitals were consistent in this regard. No relationships were found between job involvement, upward striving, and/or organizational commitment with culture strength. The second finding was that at the larger hospital there was a significant difference in culture strength scores among some work units, while at the smaller hospital this was not the case. This finding supports the idea that size of an organization is a factor in the predisposition to subculture formation.

Text

2010-08-30

For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/27936

Health Care and Epidemiology

University of British Columbia

Graduate