Networks of nurses: A case study in informal networks of advice

Informal social networks within organizations are all too often very different from the planned, formal networks structured for efficiency. A group of nurses on a large ward in a teaching hospital were studied as a case study to analyze links that relate to the seeking of advice on clinical, adminis...

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Main Authors: Armstrong, H., Klass, Des
Format: Conference Paper
Published: 2013
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/53608
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author Armstrong, H.
Klass, Des
author_facet Armstrong, H.
Klass, Des
author_sort Armstrong, H.
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Informal social networks within organizations are all too often very different from the planned, formal networks structured for efficiency. A group of nurses on a large ward in a teaching hospital were studied as a case study to analyze links that relate to the seeking of advice on clinical, administrative and personal matters. The nurses were arranged into a reporting structure and a team structure to support the preceptionship role of the hospital. The professional support that nurses obtain from colleagues both within their teams and across other teams was studied to determine the amount of collaboration outside their direct reporting clusters, mentors and team members. This involved the analysis of both formal and informal networks of nurses, the influence gained by position in the network, clustering of nurses and finally workload and its effect on key nurses. The main findings were that nurses sought information across their formal team boundaries more than within and required administrative duties competed with clinical duties for senior nurses. © 2013 IEEE.
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-536082017-09-13T15:46:41Z Networks of nurses: A case study in informal networks of advice Armstrong, H. Klass, Des Informal social networks within organizations are all too often very different from the planned, formal networks structured for efficiency. A group of nurses on a large ward in a teaching hospital were studied as a case study to analyze links that relate to the seeking of advice on clinical, administrative and personal matters. The nurses were arranged into a reporting structure and a team structure to support the preceptionship role of the hospital. The professional support that nurses obtain from colleagues both within their teams and across other teams was studied to determine the amount of collaboration outside their direct reporting clusters, mentors and team members. This involved the analysis of both formal and informal networks of nurses, the influence gained by position in the network, clustering of nurses and finally workload and its effect on key nurses. The main findings were that nurses sought information across their formal team boundaries more than within and required administrative duties competed with clinical duties for senior nurses. © 2013 IEEE. 2013 Conference Paper http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/53608 10.1109/NSW.2013.6609211 restricted
spellingShingle Armstrong, H.
Klass, Des
Networks of nurses: A case study in informal networks of advice
title Networks of nurses: A case study in informal networks of advice
title_full Networks of nurses: A case study in informal networks of advice
title_fullStr Networks of nurses: A case study in informal networks of advice
title_full_unstemmed Networks of nurses: A case study in informal networks of advice
title_short Networks of nurses: A case study in informal networks of advice
title_sort networks of nurses: a case study in informal networks of advice
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/53608