The primary purpose of this descriptive study was to identify, describe, and compare the patterns of shared governance and nursing unit culture in the hospital settings. The secondary purpose of the research was to identify, describe whether the participation style or responsibility style of nursing management activities shared through nurses in a consistent way.
Methodology included survey and in-depth interviews with a total 145 members of 15 nursing units in 3 hospitals. One was a national hospital, another was a corporation hospital and the other was a teaching hospitals.
Conclusions from this research included the fol lowing:
1. The degree of shared governance in nursing management activities was the highest in the corporation hospital.
2. In the participation style of nursing management activities, all participation´ was the highest in the corporation hospital, ´Nursing administration only was the highest in the national hospital.
3. Distribution of responsibility style differed from that of participation style. Three hospitals showed high in nursing management activities s uch as ´nursing administration only´ and ´head nurse only style.
4. Five experts surveyed showed that the ideal level of nurses participation in nursing management activities was a traditional nursing governance pattern.
5. There was a distinct difference in the nursing unit culture throughout the institutions in the professional growth.
6. There was no significant difference in the same nursing units of three hospitals in nursing unit culture.
According to these results, the following implications can be made
1. In nursing administration, there should be an emphasis on preparing staff nurses potential decision-making ability through continuing education so that staff nurses´ autonomy and responsibility will be developed and increased.
2. It is necessary to develop a strategic nursing unit for improving nursing quality in hospital setting.
3. The relationship of shared governance, nursing unit culture and nursing outcome should be researched further.
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