Massey University Departments

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    Making sense of the Director of Nursing structural positioning in New Zealand public hospitals (2006-2012) : a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Massey University
    (Massey University, 2013) Hughes, Kerri-ann
    This dissertation reports on research examining and analyzing nursing leadership structures in New Zealand public hospitals, and in particular, the Director of Nursing (DoN) structural positioning. Leadership in hospital nursing is critical if the profession is to meet the challenges facing health services in the 21st century. The research has been undertaken using case study methodology and focuses on how organizational decision-making structures have impacted on nursing leadership in public hospitals. ‘Sense-making’ has been used as a theoretical construct to understand both the formal and informal structures that influence organizational decision-making. Phase one of the research involved examining twenty District Health Board (DHB) organizational and nursing charts. In phase two and three, the Directors of Nursing (DoNs) and the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) were surveyed using a series of demographic and qualitative questions to draw out understanding of the Director of Nursing (DoN) role. The research has found that the constructs of power and authority influence the decision making processes at the executive level of the DHB. An analysis of the data indicates that the current structural positioning of the DoN is hindered by the existing dual accountability line reporting structures in DHBs and this is a barrier to alignment with Magnet hospital principles which provide evidence of effective patient outcomes. The focus primarily adopted by District Health Boards on professional line reporting only for nursing is not conducive to achieving effective and safe patient outcomes as it removes authority from the DoN and yet places unrealisticexpectations on accountability of how the DoN can achieve effective and safe patient outcomes within the public hospital setting.
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    BSMC : is there room for me? : an exploration of nursing leadership in primary health care : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Nursing at Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2012) Calverley, Rachael
    The unpredictability of health in a dynamic climate can result in a multiplicity of challenges. Indeed unpredictability has been referred to as the essence of creativity. Strong leadership in healthcare and importantly nursing is crucial to seeking solutions to organizational change especially when decision making will impact on the population’s health. By influencing policy objectives through leadership, nurses have the opportunity to develop strategies that make a difference to future complex problems. With the implementation of the Governments Better Sooner More Convenient (BSMC) policy agenda and principles underway from 2008 onwards, to reframe primary health care services, a series of key principles emerged including: a more personalized primary health care system with services moved closer to home; reduction in demand on hospitals and a package of services centred on integrated family health centres, with nurses taking a key role in shifting services from the secondary to primary care needs of patient support. From seventy health collective submissions positioning themselves to address these principles, nine were selected to move through to the next stage of development. The applications from all of the successful organizations referred to the need for improved multi-professional working and/or the importance of the nursing workforce to the BSMC agenda. Importantly, it would appear that a high quality nursing leadership function within the BSMC health collectives developing BSMC service configurations would be required to meet their goals. The purpose of this study was to explore with nurse leaders how they were able to contribute to these evolving primary health care collectives and changes that influenced the development of new or reviewed services, in addition to gaining insight into their challenges and opportunities as nurse leaders. The literature suggests a move away from the post heroic model of leadership and refers more frequently to coalitions of experts or leaders as a collective intelligence. These emerging characteristics represent a distributed leadership model that is leadership shared across varying people, professions and roles. It is this distributed model of leadership that provided a conceptual framework and a clear point of reference for this study. A qualitative approach derived from an interpretive perspective was the methodology chosen for this research. Eight out of nine potential nurse leaders involved in each of the regional health collectives participated in telephone interviews and communicated with the researcher via email networks. Theme identification was the essential task for the analysis process. Four key themes were identified with subthemes: politicization (power to influence), infrastructure (teams and education/training), coalitions of leaders (communication and relationships) and resilience (battling and visibility). The findings suggest on-going challenges to nurses leading in primary health care which include fragmentation among nurses, variable investment in regional nursing infrastructure, interdisciplinary relationship issues and limited training to develop future nurse leaders. Addressing these results requires clinical, strategic and professional nursing leaders to work within fora that are unified, cohesive and collectively agreed on their purpose.
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    In search of nursing : the long-term impact of the New Zealand health reforms on ward nursing : a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Nursing at Massey University, Manawatu, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2012) Teekman, Englebert Cornelis
    This thesis began with my curiosity about why, despite repeated attention to nurses’ health assessment skills (at undergraduate and professional development level), it has remained an under-utilised skill. A focused ethnography was conducted in six acute wards of a provincial New Zealand hospital. Twelve registered nurses were observed and interviewed in the first phase of the research and multiple additional primary data sources were utilised. Early findings indicated that nurses did not undertake health assessment and raised much broader questions about the nature of ward nursing practice and the amount of control ward nurses have over their work environment and their own nursing practice. The research was extended to include seven stakeholders, senior nurses who had good insight and knowledge of ward nursing practice. A structuration theory lens was applied to assist in the analytic process. The findings of this research reveal the long-term impact of the NZ health reforms on ward nursing practice. The introduction of generic management principles and the continuous restructuring of the health care environment have impacted on nursing practice and reduced nurses’ autonomy. Nurses have come to rely on standardised documented processes to provide essential care, relying significantly less on knowledge of a patient’s actual health status. Much recent local and international quantitative research has revealed a number of concerning findings about the reduced time nurses spend at the bedside, the complexity of nursing work flow, the increase in interruptions, missed nursing care, and the vital role nurses have in preventing many adverse events and unexpected deaths. This thesis provides a rich qualitative understanding of the circumstances behind these quantitative findings and reveals that nurses are now struggling to provide care consistent with the ethos of nursing. I argue that challenging the nature of nurse education will not improve nurses’ ability to deliver nursing care. Instead I argue that the current acute ward environment does not support registered nurses to provide the nature of care for which their education has prepared them.
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    State practice and rural smallholder production : late-colonialism and the agrarian doctrine in Papua New Guinea, 1942-1969 : a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Development Studies at Massey University
    (Massey University, 1999) Wright, Huntley Lloyd Rayne
    This study shows why and how late-colonial state practice in Papua New Guinea became synonymous with the development of a centrally regulated scheme of rural household production. It is suggested that the origins of the scheme lie not in its supposed pre-adaptiveness to previously existing ('non-capitalist') social relations, nor in its external, 'subsidising' effect on capital accumulation. Rather, its origins lie in the changing politico-economic realities of post-Second World War global capitalism and the corresponding shift to social trusteeship which, in transmitting metropolitan ideas on 'full employment' to the colonies, sought to reconcile indigenous welfare with expanded rural commodity production. Key objects of analysis include the late-colonial state, the household labour process and the agrarian doctrine of development. It is argued that a serious weakness in much of the literature on Papua New Guinea is the tendency to conflate the distinction between immanent and intentional development, so that the negative dimension implicit in the latter is excluded from discussion. Whereas the immanent implies an unintentional process, unfolding outside the regulatory capacity of the colonial state, the intentional refers to the conscious application of state power to ameliorate the negative consequences explicit in the former - poverty and the emergence of a relative surplus population. The present study seeks to recapture the negative dimension of the late-colonial intent to develop in Papua New Guinea. It is argued that the post-war ascendancy of household production is given in the formation of an agrarian doctrine which, in positing the middle peasant as a developmental ideal, sought to use state policy to check landlessness by recasting the capital-labour relation in agriculture. The intent was to regenerate the 'old' within a welfarist agenda defined in opposition to the "landless proletariat". Securing this process was a fundamental shift in the relationship between the colonial state and international capital. In the period 1919-1939 the movement of capital was essentially spontaneous, albeit subject to regulatory controls on land and labour. However, for the period under consideration the "order of intervention was reversed". Reflecting a major increase in power and capacity, the colonial state "assembled capital" to be superintended as part of the Administration's plan for expanding indigenous commodity production. It is in this recasting of late-colonial state practice that the dominance of household production is situated.