Promoting organisational recovery after wrongdoing: Is this next challenge for nurse leaders?

Abstract

In recent years a number of health care organisations have been at the centre of media reports and public inquiries into wrongdoing and systemic failures(Alberti 2009, Thome 2009). Most of this high-impact organisational wrongdoing has been collective in nature, involving numerous individuals within organisations. In at least some ways, these events have contributed to an erosion of trust in the safety and benevolence of healthcare organisations. For the nursing workforce, these high profile events have occurred against a backdrop of already high levels of workplace stress and trauma (Jackson et al. 2010), exacerbating what already can be difficult and troubling work environments (Hutchinson & Jackson 2014a).Reducing the enormous burden that stems from wrongdoing and fostering organisational recovery is a formidable challenge facing many nurse leaders. There is a pressing need for nurse leaders to understand the processes through which organisations can recover their legitimacy and repair trust in the face of systemic failure and wrongdoing. Furthermore, we suggest there is a need to extend efforts to repair harm from an individual-level focus to include organisational and intra-organisational focii.