There is a constant debate regarding delineation of the concepts of organisational culture (OC) and organisational climate (OCL). The results of empirical studies, though inconsistent, show that OC and OCL can influence nurses' job satisfaction and turnover, and therefore, indirectly create an impact on patients' satisfaction.

The purposes of this study were to examine and estimate the relationships and moderators among OC, OCL and nurse work outcomes (job satisfaction and turnover) in the U.S. hospital nursing population. An extensive literature search of 35 computerised databases, footnote chasing, and search by author was performed to locate primary studies that were published before February 2007 and examined relationships among OC, OCL, and two nurse work outcomes of hospital nurses in the U.S.

The three cultural patterns of the Organizational Culture Inventory and the organisational climate elements proposed by Kopelman et al. (1990) provided taxonomies for merging diverse OC.