Sources of social power for administrators of baccalaureate and higher degree programs in nursing

• Main Author: Arndt, Mary Jo
• Other Authors: Patton, Don C.
• Format: Others
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: Nurse administrators.; Nursing > Study and teaching (Graduate)
• Online Access: http://cardinalscholar.bsu.edu/handle/handle/174845; http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/250857

A major purpose of the study was to determine whether differences exist between perceptions about sources of power by deans of colleges of nursing in medical centers and deans in non-medical centers. Discernible differences attributable to position title and years of administrative experience were also investigated. A subsidiary purpose of the study was to explore relationships between expert and referent power and among coercive, legitimate, and reward power.Data were collected from 206 out of 300 administrators of National League for Nursing accredited baccalaureate and higher degree programs. A Power Assessment Instrument measuring the five sources of social power as formalized by French and Raven, and a Demographic Data Sheet were utilized for data collection.Decisions about three null hypotheses were made at the 0.05 level by use of multivariate and univariate analysis and, where appropriate, post hoc Newman -Keuls procedures. Findings for a fourth hypothesis were drawn from a Pearson Product-Moment correlation analysis.Major findings included:1. No differences were observed in perceptions about sources of power between deans in medical centers and deans in non-medical center settings.2. Coercive and referent power emerged as significant variables in comparing deans to all chairmen and deans to chairmen reporting directly to the chief academic officer. Deans perceive presence of more coercive power than chairmen while chairmen perceive referent power than deans. Deans and chairmen not reporting directly did not differ.3. Administrators with eleven or more years of administrative experience perceive presence of expert power more than administrators with ten years or less of experience.4. All five sources of power were highly correlated with no discernible tendencies for grouping between expert and referent power or among coercive, legitimate, and reward power.Additional observations, while not empirically supported by the data, were presented. Also presented were recommendations for further explorations pertaining to nursing education and power assessment.