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Strategies of Persuasion: The Efforts of Nurse Practitioners in Institutionalizing a New Role

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Book cover Organizing and Reorganizing

Part of the book series: Organizational Behaviour in Health Care ((OBHC))

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Abstract

Political entrepreneurs are people who get things done. They are critical to change implementation within organizations because they have the ability to use their contextual knowledge and convince others to modify their behavior (Buchanan and Badham 1999). But are political entrepreneurs also important in institutional change? Our study of nurse practitioners (NPs) in Alberta, Canada, led us to believe that political entrepreneurship was an important but overlooked component of institutional and organizational change. We followed the introduction of a new NP role (nurses with advanced education and experience) over a five-year time period, observing how this institutional change process was orchestrated and driven by individuals at the front lines. NPs themselves used their contextual knowledge to design and implement strategies in attempts to institutionalize the new role.

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© 2008 Trish Reay and Karen Golden-Biddle

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Reay, T., Golden-Biddle, K. (2008). Strategies of Persuasion: The Efforts of Nurse Practitioners in Institutionalizing a New Role. In: McKee, L., Ferlie, E., Hyde, P. (eds) Organizing and Reorganizing. Organizational Behaviour in Health Care. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230583207_13

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