When the participating nurses talked about the care
culture, it is possible to interpret the perspectives of
metaphor and variable concurrently. For example, from
the perspective of metaphor, they could describe how they
experienced being like guest workers on the wards and
trying to adapt to how care is given there. At the same time,
they had an ideal image, assuredly different among the
nurses, of what good caring should be, which could be
compared to the variable perspective. To achieve a caring
culture founded on certain values, for example caritas, love
and charity, as Eriksson (Lindstro¨m et al., 2006) suggested,
we must first understand how the organization and
personnel understand care. However, as stated previously,
organizational theory has not yet been developed in acaring perspective (Bondas, 2003), thus there are difficulties
in applying Smirnich’s two perspectives of culture to a
caring context.