POWER AND OPPORTUNITY IN PUBLIC-HEALTH NURSING WORK ENVIRONMENTS

Kanter's structural theory of power in organizations provided the conc eptual framework for this comparative study on perceptions of power of two levels of nurses working in three public health agencies during a time of program transition. Forty-six public health nurses and 10 nur se managers were surveyed to examine their perceptions of the amount o f power existing in their own and their counterparts' jobs. Propositio ns from Kanter's theory were supported by the data. Both groups rated their work environments to be somewhat low in power, although managers perceived themselves to be significantly more empowered in their work environments than did staff nurses. In addition, staff nurses perceiv ed themselves to have significantly less access to empowerment structu res (opportunity, information, support, and resources) than their mana gers perceived them to have. Staff nurse empowerment was found to be s ignificantly related to perceptions of their immediate managers' power in the organization.