PURPOSE: This study was done to identify the effect of nursing organizational culture on empowerment as perceived by new clinical nurses. METHODS: For the objective a sample of 175 new nurses from secondary/tertiary hospitals having not less than 250 beds located in B city was selected to complete a questionnaire. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-test, One-way ANOVA, Scheffe's test, Pearson correlation coefficients and simultaneous multiple regression with the SPSS 14.0 software program. RESULTS: As for nursing organizational culture as perceived by the respondent, relation-oriented culture had the highest average score (3.60+/-.63) out of a possible 5 points followed by hierarch-oriented culture, innovation-oriented culture and task-oriented culture with 3.45+/-.30, 3.19+/-.53 and 3.05+/-.46, respectively. The respondents' level of perceived empowerment was 3.06+/-.41. The factors influencing empowerment according to nursing organizational culture were innovation-oriented and relation-oriented culture in that order. These 2 variables were statistically significant predictors and explained 48.6% of the variance in empowerment. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study indicate that emphasis should be given to nursing organizational culture strengthened by innovationoriented and relation-oriented culture, rather than task-oriented and hierarch-oriented culture, in order to foster harmonious empowerment among nurses at all levels.
Surveys and Questionnaires ; Organizational Culture ; Power (Psychology)