Organizational Theory

Organizational Theory

Organizations exist everywhere in our world today. Specifically, they pervade the healthcare industry; from major teaching hospitals to community clinics to outpatient therapy centers. Anyone working in healthcare today inevitably deals with large and small organizations on a daily basis. However, as many people are aware, there are vast differences amongst the many organizations that any one of us must deal with in the course of our day. Organizational theory can aid in our understanding of the functioning of these organizations and ultimately improve our interactions with them as well as within them.

There are multiple ways of examining organizations; just as in healthcare there are multiple ways to examine a patient. Shaftriz, Ott and Jang (2011) believe that there is no one organizational theory but there are "many theories that attempt to explain and predict how organizations and the people in them will behave in varying organizational structures, cultures and circumstances" (pg. 1). One way to examine an organization is to perform an analysis from an organizational feature perspective. This approach focuses on examining the fundamental structure of the organization and studies how various processes and interactions within the organization lead to the end product. Cultural theory, on the other hand focuses on the psychology, attitudes, experiences, beliefs and values of an organization in its attempt to understand organizational functioning (Scott & Davis, 2007). Culture within an organization can be visualized in the 'rituals, stories, humor, jargon, physical arrangements, and formal structures and policies, as well as informal norms and practices' (Shafritz, Ott & Jang, 2011, 363) that are witnessed.

No organization exists in isolation and Scott and Davis (2007) remind us that 'Every organization exists in a specific physical, technological, cultural and social environment to which it must adapt." (pg. 19). To examine an organization from more than one perspective provides valuable insights into the various levels of functioning of that organization.

Cultural variations within organizations will affect analysis of the organization even if that analysis is undertaken from a features perspective. For example; an investigator may be analyzing staffing ratios in a hospital and determine that based on workload (as determined by an accepted acuity measurement tool), the day shift should require fewer staff. However, if they also take into account the culture of the organization which has, for a long time, taken new nurses, put them on the day shift with mentors and preceptors who nurture them in efforts to enhance recruitment and retention, then the staffing mix may make sense and be determined to be appropriate. If, on the other hand, a hospital with high turn over of new staff has lean staffing ratios, perhaps taking the culture of that organization into consideration may lend itself to some reshaping of the staffing matrix.

While organizations are an integral part of the modern healthcare system, they must be examined under a different lens than business organizations for several reasons. Healthcare organizations are unique in many ways. A great many healthcare organizations are nonprofit or not-for-profit. While the majority of literature on organizational analysis is focused on the business world, it is reasonable to assume that any financial analysis that is to be done on the organization will be affected by its non-profit status.

Healthcare facilities have traditionally been organized based on a functional model where discipline based specialties form the structural