Setting
The study setting was three acute care hospitals, two metropolitan tertiary referral and one general teaching hospital in an area health service in NSW, Australia.
Sample
From ‘calls for expressions of interest’ sent to three hospitals, only ve nurse managers volunteered to participate in the study. The inclusion criteria were: a nurse manager in an acute care adult ward with a team‐based approach to nursing care delivery. The size of the purposive sample is small but appropriate for a qualitative study as Kuzel (1999) suggests a range between ve to twenty persons. Ethics protocols were approved by the area health service and university Human Research Ethics Committees. The participants were registered nurses with a mean of four and half years’ experience as a nurse manager in an acute care ward and a median of ten years’ experience with team nursing. There were four female and one male participants; two held a masters degree, one a bachelor degree and two held postgraduate certi cates.