Frontline nurse managers’ visions for their units: A qualitative study

Aims: To elucidate frontline nurse managers’ visions of their units. Background: Managers have the opportunity to imagine and share their visions for effective unit management. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 frontline nurse managers working at inpatient units in two hospitals between 2016 and 2017. Data were qualitatively analysed using an inductive approach, focusing on participants’ intents. Results: Although participants showed four types of difficulties in verbalizing visions, five categories and 18 subcategories were extracted through analysis of their descriptions about actual cases reflecting their visions. The categories were (a) provide excellent care to ensure patient recovery based on reliable knowledge and skills, (b) make efforts to broaden patients’ futures, (c) create a climate for pursuing better practice, (d) all staff continuously pursue professional development and (e) provide nursing care that responds to external changes. All categories were common to all participants’ images of the future and linked together to form each manager’s vision. Conclusion: Frontline managers experienced difficulty in articulating their visions. However, through episodes, they represented images of visions. The managers’ visions comprised five categories reflecting various perspectives. Implications for Nursing Management: Using a conceptualized vision framework, and identifying difficulties in verbalizing their images, can help managers articulate their visions.