Date of Award

1996

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Human Resource Management

Department

Business

First Advisor

Betty LeMasters

Second Advisor

James Lister

Third Advisor

Joseph Anconna

Abstract

"Becoming a successful manager in a health care agency is, for most new managers, an awesome and extremely challenging goal. Most new managers have little idea of the complexities of a management position and of the difficulties they will encounter" (Dajvidhaizar 65). Ever more, nurses are finding employment opportunities in small business environments and without the services of the human resource management department that is available to their counterparts in traditional hospital settings. Due to changes in the way health-care is being delivered, there is a pressing need for today's nurse manager to be better prepared than in the past. The knowledge needed is a combination of leadership skills acquired through experience in a health care environment, and an understanding of how to make sound managerial decisions that are in compliance with legal requirements.

This thesis will focus on the study of the development of human resource management in the workplace, and examine the implications that this has for nurse managers employed in businesses without access to such assistance. It also looks at how adults, women in particular, learn. Of interest, is whether it is possible to take advantage of these various learning styles when designing a human resource manual for predominately female nurse managers. Research indicates that while women can learn from a variety of methods, they prefer a collaborative give-and-take type of learning environment. Consequently, it would appear that while using a tool such as a manual is not impossible for female .nurse managers, it is definitely not a style they would choose or one that comes naturally to the majority of them.

Three administrators and two human resource management directors participated in the study. They read the manual, completed a survey addressing its completeness, accuracy, and ease of use. Their comments were generally positive in nature, with the primary area of concern centering on how well managers could effectively deal with some of the legal applications of management termination.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Included in

Business Commons

Share

COinS