The organizational social context in public healthcare as viewed by first-line nursing managers: A cross-sectional study

Different organizational climates and cultures appear within healthcare organizations and vary within their associated subgroups. The healthcare and nursing work environments have been studied from the individualistic perspectives rather than from organizational or nurse managers’ group perspectives. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to examine the differentiation of organizational social contexts in hospitals. The organizational social context (OSC) measurement system was used to assess characteristics of culture, climate and morale. The data have been statistically analyzed using within-group consistency (rwg), ANOVA-based eta-squared values and interclass correlation coefficient (ICC). The results revealed that at the divisional level, the organization’s social context is different.

Organizational Social Context

Understanding the social context of an organization is a precursor to managing tacit knowledge. This chapter describes a three-dimensional social-context framework comprising factors, trust, and manageability. Factors are underlying characteristics - situation, interaction, and scale - that affect all aspects of the social structure. Trust classifies criteria that affect trust at individual, group, and organizational levels. Manageability lists methods of enhancing indicators for each social context criteria. The framework is based on patterns and clusters of 1200 terms found in a survey of the social-science literature related to social structures. The framework is presented in a format that facilitates prioritizing the most important criteria for an organization to focus on. Understanding how social context affects organizations will greatly facilitate tacit knowledge management.