THE INFLUENCE OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE ON INFORMATIONAL USE IN DECISION MAKING WITHIN GOVERNMENT HEALTH SERVICES

By Tony Garret [7]

Promoting evidence-informed and performance-oriented decision making at all administrative levels in low- and middle-income countries is viewed as an essential strategy to achieve more effective and appropriate use of scarce resources and improved development outcomes. In the health sector, routine health information generated at regular intervals from institution-based data sources provides information about the performance of government policies, programs, and health facilities. Since the 1980s, a number of countries have restructured their national routine health information systems The Influence of Organizational Culture on Information Use with the objective of strengthening the ability of managers and health care providers to assess performance and to take action to improve the functioning of the health services. Yet, an increase in the availability of timely, accurate and relevant information has in many cases not resulted in more evidence-based decision making. This is despite the channeling of considerable financial resources to the development of the information systems .

Efforts to build statistical capacity in the developing world have often failed to produce the expected increases in information use in management and planning. The ways in which culture influences evidence-informed and results-oriented decision making in organizations in low- and middle-income countries are not

An internal locus of control characterizes cultures in which individuals believe they have much control over the outcomes of their actions. External locus of control at the opposite pole of this dimension is descriptive of a culture in which individuals believe they have only limited control over the outcomes of their actions due to the influence of supernatural powers, fate, or some powerful others.