What is the difference between culture and climate?

Organizational Foundations

As you strive to grow in your leadership skills and abilities, you will find that the context in which you work influences your motivation and areas of focus. In a similar vein, your commitment to developing professionally can contribute toward organizational effectiveness.

To that end, it is critical to recognize the importance of organizational culture and climate. In particular, through this week’s Learning Resources, you may consider several questions: How do an organization’s mission, vision, and values relate to its culture? What is the difference between culture and climate? Moreover, how are culture and climate manifested within the organization?

For this Discussion, you explore the culture and climate of your current organization or one with which you are familiar. You also consider decisions and day-to-day practices and the way they relate to the organization’s mission, vision, and values.

To prepare:

• Review the information related to planning and decision making in health care organizations presented in the textbook, Leadership Roles and Management Functions in Nursing: Theory and Application. Consider how planning and decision making relate to an organization’s mission, vision, and values, as well as its culture and its climate.
• Familiarize yourself with the mission, vision, and values of your organization or one with which you are familiar. Consider how the statements and actions of leaders and others within the organization support or demonstrate the organizational mission, vision, and values. In addition, note any apparent discrepancies between word and deed. Think about how this translates into expectations for direct service providers. Note any data or artifacts that seem to indicate whether behaviors within the organization are congruent with its mission, vision, and values.
• Begin to examine and reflect on the culture and climate of the organization. How do culture and climate differ?
• Why is it important for you, as a master’s-prepared nurse leader, to be cognizant of these matters?

Post  (1) a description of your selected organization’s mission, vision, and values. (2) Describe relevant data, or artifacts, words, and actions of leaders and others in the organization that support, or perhaps appear to contradict the organization’s mission, vision, and values statement. (3) In addition, discuss the organization’s culture and its climate, differentiating between the two. (4) Explain why examining these matters is significant to your role as a nurse leader