Nurses’ perspectives on the impact of management approaches on the blame culture in health-care organizations

ABSTRACT

The study aimed at assessing nurses’ perspectives on the impact of management approach on blame culture in health care organizations. The research questions that guided the study included the evaluation of the effect of blame culture on nurses and the determination of the impact of management approaches such as the organizational function logic approach, the individual blame logic approach, the control-based approach, and the commitment-based management approach on blame culture. The research was carried out using the quantitative analysis approach, which involved the analysis of 21 studies. The study findings indicated that blame culture negatively affects the nurses’ willingness to report errors leading to increased nurse turnover. The blame culture was also observed to cause psychological stress and trauma among nurses. The study also indicated that nurses perceive the adoption of the organizational function logic management approach and the commitment-based management approach in addressing medical errors as associated with a significant decline in blame culture (p = 0.002 and p = 0.037, respectively). The study, therefore, recommends that the organizational function logic and the commitment-based management approaches be adopted in addressing medical errors.

KEYWORDS:

• Blame culture
• management approach
• medical errors
• organizational function logic
• commitment-based management

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Dr Paulchris Okpala is an Associate Professor and Director of a Master of Science degree in the Department of Health Science and Human Ecology at California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB). He is also the current Chair, Academic Affairs, Healthcare Executives of Southern California, USA. He obtained his Doctor of Health Sciences degree from A.T. Still University of Health Sciences, Mesa, AZ, USA, Master of Healthcare Administration with concentration in Leadership from Bellevue University, Bellevue, NE, USA, Master of Public Administration from Bellevue University, Bellevue, NE, USA, Bachelor of Science in Healthcare Management from Bellevue University, Bellevue, NE, USA; Associate of Science degree in Healthcare Management from Ashworth University, Norcross, GA, USA; and Associate of Science degree in Respiratory Therapy from Concorde Career College, Garden Grove, CA, USA. Dr Okpala has worked in both acute care and skilled nursing facilities as a licensed Respiratory Care Practitioner. Dr Okpala's research interests have been shaped by the fact that healthcare managers are the main drivers of effective functioning of the healthcare sector. As such, his research studies primarily focused on harnessing the importance of theory, evidence-based research and advanced technology in improving the quality of healthcare services and prevention of degenerative diseases among the vulnerable individuals in the society. To date, Dr Okpala has over 21 peer-reviewed publications, with quite a few manuscripts still in-print. He has also done over 19 research presentations at professional scholarly national conferences across various states: New Orleans, Louisiana, Michigan, Chicago, Illinois, Ashville, North Carolina, Honolulu, Hawaii, Bethesda, Maryland, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, international conferences in University of Oxford, England, Tokyo University, Japan, and Seville, Spain.