Bureaucratic Structure In Nursing

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INTRODUCTION: Putting patients at the heart of healthcare processes and procedures is the key driver to quality of care as it enables a better emphasis on the care practice from identification, and throughout all approaches leading to healthy lifestyle maintenance (Antwi & Mryanka 2014). Nursing performances in the current healthcare systems are therefore, focused on care quality which is mostly determined through patients’ conditions, as well as the attainment of structural objectives (Bakker et al 2000, Brady Germain & Cummings 2010). Every organisation has a unique structural “finger print” (Senior & Swailes 2010), comprising of formal (visible) and informal (hidden) aspects which are intended to foster the organisation’s survival and success …show more content…

It was proposed by Max Weber –German Sociologist (Huczynski & Buchanan 2013), and also the most traditional and best known form of organisational structure (Senior & Swailes 2010). Bureaucratic structures are characterised by hierarchical arrangement of positions with a single chain of command from the top cascading down to subordinates (Pugh 1990). Power/authority is centralised in the hand of the leader/manager, with inflexible and constricted processes, strategies, and restrictions. With strict control mechanisms in place, such organisations are unwilling to change (Burley 2015, Robbins & Coulter 2009). However, bureaucracy is formally reasonable and does not permit individual feelings,frame of mind, or perceptions to get in the way of achieving its objectives (Huczynski & Buchanan 2013), but can lead to lack of creativity, little invention, low staff fulfilment, as well as reduced staff retention (Sullivan & Garland …show more content…

Culture therefore, have a considerable impact on innovation and change in organisations (Brady 2010). A study in Western Sweden by Carlstrom & Ekman (2012), which investigated the association between organisational beliefs, principles, values and the employee opposition to change, highlighted that a culture with more emphasis on communal competences reduces “routing seeking behaviours i.e predisposition to maintain steady routine and unwillingness to leave old habits. This result also suggest that a non-rigid culture with interconnection and confidence will work towards a stable and well defined framework. However, attitudes, beliefs, as well as the level of enthusiasm to give people independence, and back them in their engagements may also affect the organisation’s capacity to transform (Senior & Swailes