Strengthening quality culture in private sector and health care

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this study is to present a comprehensive approach to studying organizational culture using "soft measures" to facilitate sustainable quality development in organizations. The purpose is also to present, discuss and compare the results from a survey designed to measure a company's value base. Design/methodology/approach A number of different methods were used to collect soft data to study and measure organizational culture and at the same time influence the culture and the leadership within three organizations. One method, the survey, was used on two different occasions to obtain an overview of the culture within an organization and to investigate if the activities had influenced the culture and the leadership. Findings The application of soft measures used by leaders to study and develop organizational culture resulted in statistically significant positive changes in organizational work culture, according to a pre-post survey after a short period of one year. Practical implications The approach can be used by leaders in different types of organizations as the challenge of changing the organizational culture through the leadership seems to be a common challenge regardless of line of business. Originality/value The study shows the benefits of using a comprehensive approach to assess an organization's culture based on qualitative measures and analysis.

The Impact of Organizational Culture for Company's Innovation Strategy

“…The most often listed activities focused on building quality culture are: focus on customer satisfaction, focus on processes, teamwork, open communication and exchange of knowledge, focus on making decisions based on facts (Adebanjo and Kehoe, 1998: 276-277;Ali and Musah, 2012: 290;Ingelsson et al, 2018Ingelsson et al, : 1755Ingelsson et al, -1756. In shaping quality culture, the greatest significance is thus attributed to interpersonal relationships, treatment of employees and customers with respect, focus on development, acquisition of licenses, and co-participation in organization management.…”

“…Conclusions. Organizational culture is a complex phenomenon -changing it takes time and effort, especially from organizations' leaders (Ingelsson et al, 2018(Ingelsson et al, : 1760. Managers must decide and be convinced that a culture of quality is worth pursuing.…”

“…Therefore understanding organizational culture is about symbol, ideational systems, myth, and ritual or about the art of reading and understanding organizational life (Pietersen, 2017: 263). It consists of a cluster of common norms and values, which are formed over a long time and affect the way an organisation works (Ingelsson et al, 2018(Ingelsson et al, : 1751. Because of that a new organisational culture is nowadays developed to support and improve the organisation's core activities (Tenji and Foley, 2019: 401).…”

“…At the same time, these initiatives fail to reach their potential because leaders lack an understanding of the key role of organisational culture in quality. They're ignoring the role of values, behaviours and attitudes in spite of the fact that there is a strong link between performance management and organizational culture that leaders need to understand to help them reach full quality development (Ingelsson et al, 2018(Ingelsson et al, : 1751. It is also proved, that the key reasons for failures of quality management processes implementation are partial deployment and lack of understanding of organisational culture Koilakuntla, 2018: 1407).…”

Health-related quality management values – comparing manager and co-worker perceptions

“…This finding is in line with Snyder et al (2016), who stated that if leaders want to transform the culture within an organization, they have to act and conduct new practices that focus on building an open work culture. Ingelsson et al (2018) found that working with the leadership group affected the culture of the whole organization. They also used a measurement approach that reflected both the soft and hard aspects of the culture and thereby corresponded to a balanced performance measurement system (Ingelsson et al, 2018).…”