Date of Award
Spring 1991
Document Type
Thesis - Restricted
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Department
Nursing
First Advisor
Wake, Madeline
Second Advisor
Steele, Beverly
Third Advisor
Malin, Michelle
Abstract
Nurse managers and clinical nurse specialists are responsible to influence nursing staff to achieve specific organizational objectives. Power strategies are tools which may be used to achieve results. An individual's belief about power influences the approach to power. Power orientation has the potential to influence behavior in the organizational setting (Goldberg, Cavanaugh & Larson, 1983). In the organizational setting, power has an impact on the performance of role responsibilities of nurses. Therefore, it is important to know how nurses think about power. There is limited research on the power orientation of nurses (Farley, 1986, Heineken, 1985 & Lash, 1989). The purpose of this study was to determine the power orientation of nurse managers and clinical nurse specialists, and to compare and contrast the two groups. Cavanaugh's (1979) Power Orientation Scale was used to measure power orientation. Questionnaires were mailed to 206 nurse managers listed in the 1990 Wisconsin Council of Nurse Manager Directory and 94 clinical nurse specialists listed in the 1989 Wisconsin Clinical Nurse Specialist Directory. According to the findings, the only significant difference between the two group's power orientation was resource dependency (p=0.05). Nurse managers rated this factor lower than clinical nurse specialists. This difference may be explained by the power orientation scale focus on information rather than fiscal or human resources. Similar scores were found for the other factors. Only power as good received a rating of strong agreement. Other factors' scores indicated ratings ranging from "a little agreement" to "strong agreement on the whole". Recommendations for future studies include: (1) asking nurses open-ended questions regarding their thoughts about power; (2) concurrent validity testing of the power orientation scale with another instrument to determine the efficacy of the application of the Power . Orientation scale to nurses; (3) further exploration of the resource dependency variable.
Recommended Citation
Roberts, Kathleen, "Power Orientations of Clinical Nurse Specialists and Nurse Managers" (1991). Master's Theses (1922-2009) Access restricted to Marquette Campus. 3724.
https://epublications.marquette.edu/theses/3724