Factors predisposing to shared governance: a qualitative study

In recent years, the concept of institutional governance has been highlighted as one of the most important issues in many universities due to increasing complexity of duties and functions of higher education institutions and overwhelming pressures and expectations of the state, status of business, and other extra-organizational parameters. The educational institutes are asked to work more with smaller budgets while they are increasingly responsible for organizational and educational decision-makings. These issues along with other pressures have enhanced the importance of effective governance system in educational institutes [1]. Effective governance and promotion of the work environment are necessary and requires human resources. But in nursing schools, due to the progressive decline of faculty members and increasing number of students, the workload of faculty members is increasing, which demands an improvement in the quality of the work environment. However, nursing schools and most academic organizations act in a hierarchical and bureaucratic system of decision-making [2‐4]. Moreover, faculty members generally deal with university students due to the nature of their job with a trivial role in policy- and decision-makings [3, 5].

Governance structures of educational institutions directly influence the faculty members and the staff and their occupational satisfaction [2]. It appears that shared governance has a decentered structure of power and decision-making [5, 6]. These factors have provided a position for faculty members parallel to that of managers to increase their participation to decision making processes and challenge the conventional governance [4]. Consequently, universities are required to direct their governance structure towards shared responsibilities [7], ultimately leading to their increased success and productivity [4, 5, 8]. Over the past decades, reforms have been implemented in the system of higher education through moving from centralized to decentralized (UBM) management [9].

In this regard, the nursing trainers are recommended to pay attention to the necessity of implementation of shared organizational governance by accepting innovations in the healthcare system and applying shared governance in the management style. Shared governance precipitates mission achievements, perspectives, and academic values via making relations and creating common goals and cooperation among all members [2]. Shared governance is a structure that strengthens cooperation, joint decision-making, justice, possession, and responsibility among the stakeholders to support the improvement of quality of the academic learning environment [2, 5, 7]. Despite the similarities observed in the characteristics of shared governance given in various definitions of the term, the concept has no definite and crystal-clear meaning. This is due to the differences in the socio-cultural context of various communities [10].

In Iran, the concept of shared governance is not well known. It is often confused with collaborative management or participatory management. Few studies have been carried out with respect to shared governance from educational organizations’ perspective [2]. No study has been conducted or reported so far in the Iranian educational centers with their different cultural features on shared governance. Therefore, given that an identification of the predisposing factors and antecedents which occur before the incidence of the concept will be very helpful in implementing the shared governance [11], this study explored the antecedents of shared governance in nursing schools of three major medical universities of Tehran, Iran.

Data analysis resulted in 4 categories and 12 subcategories as shown in Table 1.

This study aimed at determining the antecedents of shared governance. The findings obtained from analyzing the culled data resulted in the emergence of 4 categories and 12 subcategories. The first category distilled was “the participatory context of higher education institutions” with three subcategories including “uniqueness of schools”, “uniqueness of faculty members”, and “uniqueness of nursing education”. The participants emphasized the uniqueness of schools. Similar studies also reported that universities require shared governance due to the fact that they are a form of professional organizations with educational, research, and service-provision goals which have complex duties working in a competitive variable environment [1, 8, 15]. Moreover, academic shared governance is expressed as an essential component of the influential statement of American Association of University Professors in 1996 and is necessary for reinforcement and success of higher education centers as it is in line with the concepts of adult education [16]. Furthermore, uniqueness of faculty members is in line with studies that render shared governance as necessary for higher education institutions due to the presence of expert and professional personnel and for empowerment of faculty members in managing universities [1, 8, 15] . Moreover, the participants believed in the uniqueness of nursing education so that similar studies also referred to the differences in the type of governance and organizational structure and basic columns of decision-making from one university to another [17] and lack of obligation of institutions for having a specific recommended model of governance of faculty members [8]. Additionally, shared governance has been introduced as a method of coping diversity among faculty members and personnel of nursing schools and improving just and fair decision-making. Also, concerns on improving the work setting are increasing in nursing schools owing to the existence of a great number of open academic nurse educator positions [2]. In this study, the participants noted the necessity of the presence of infrastructures as a major category. For instance, the facilitative role of rules introduced by the participants as an infrastructure is consistent with the studies that emphasized the extensive implementation of shared governance in the universities and schools of US following the joint statement in 1996 by AAUP, ACE, and AGB. This statement entails the two principles of participation of all institution members and identifying the weight of each vote on the basis of the rate of responsibility of each member in specific subjects and supports Ramo’s shared governance indicators [1, 7, 8, 17]. Regarding corresponding intra-organizational support, similar studies have also emphasized the necessity of support and respect of faculty members towards each other in fundamental and governance responsibilities [1] and also the managers’ support for institution’s strategies [8] and development of governance skills in faculty members [17]. Emphasis has also been put on the necessity of understanding the importance of the support for university president, faculty members, and university students by governing board members [7, 18] with the difference that there is no governing board at the governmental schools in Iran. The participants further mentioned suitable resources of work as essential for shared performance of affairs. This is consistent with studies that render the maintenance of acceptable workload for faculty members [17], the presence of sufficient budget, facilities, and manpower [19], and reducing part-time faculty members as necessary for successful implementation of shared governance [10]. Learning to work as a team was introduced as the last infrastructure by the participants. This is in line with similar studies that mentioned education as a vital issue for shared governance emphasizing the obligation for the presence of current prompt strategies in the organization to reflect experiences and learning from others’ experiences to make participation in decision-makings efficacious [8, 16]. The category “coordination with contemporary needs” consisted of two subcategories of “the need of communities for participation” and “variable organizational environment”. Other studies have also emphasized the contemporary changes which have the potential to modify the decision-making model in educational institutions and emphasize the necessity of shared governance and its adjustment. These changes include issues like the relations between state governments and educational institutions, reduced public support, pressures on the universities to interact with rivals and globalization, and also changing the manpower from full-time to part-time [1, 10]. The participants’ focus on the importance of the role of managers in participation led to the formation of the category “participation-oriented managers”. The subcategory “managers as symbol of participation” is in line with studies that emphasize the role of higher levels of institutional management in creating and reinforcing a cooperative culture of participation and the successful implementation of shared governance [8, 16, 17]. These studies mention the shaping of institutional culture as the most important function of the institute’s leader [7, 8]. Moreover, the participants of the study gave special weight to the intrinsic and acquired competencies of the managers. Similar studies also emphasized the need for features such as leadership and the use of innovative managerial models by managers and the necessity of the presence of strong selection systems for choosing qualified managers [7]. Due to difficulties in university governance, they refer to reasonable and logical governance as an acquired issue and ask managers to learn it [16]. Involving faculty members in school management was also strongly noticed by the participants. These findings are consistent with studies that give the most important role to the faculty members in successful implementation of shared governance [4, 8, 10, 16, 20]. They emphasize the fulfillment of primary duties of faculty members in shared governance like affairs related to education and research and issues related to the students’ lives dealing with education and research [1, 4, 7, 10, 17, 21]. They also emphasize faculty members’ involvement in governing affairs such as planning, budgeting, and relations with extra organizational centers by managers [1, 2, 17, 21]. The study is not without limitations. This qualitative study was conducted on nursing schools, so, the acquisition and use of the experiences of experts in other schools are not possible in this study jeopardizing the external validity of the results; hence, our findings cannot be generalized to other or future situations. Ultimately, it should be pointed out that this study was carried out only in Tehran nursing schools. It is recommended that future research be directed at other nursing schools in Iran and other countries. Our findings may aid the nursing school managers in making preparations to implement the shared governance. It is also recommended that our results be used by managers and scholars to carry out larger scale research on assessing the possibility of implementing shared governance in their own context.

Our findings demonstrated that factors such as the suitable environment of nursing schools and the need of the Iranian community for participation and intervention in their own fate and the wants of the surrounding environment for increasing the outcome of educational institutions can play a significant role in implementing shared governance in such institutions. Moreover, the results indicated that there is the need for infrastructural obligations like facilitative rules of participation, manpower, and suitable facilities for performing affairs to implement shared governance successfully. Consequently, it appears that some measures ought to be taken at the level of Ministry of Health, Treatment, and Medical Education and at universities. It is also a good idea to select the personnel and especially the managers features such as participatory personality. Finally, the managers are advised to acquire knowledge on shared governance and spread it in their organization, create a supportive environment, and adjust the local rules of their institution to facilitate participation.

The application of shared governance in all educational institutions, especially nursing schools, which deal with human lives, demands an appropriate context. The selection of competent and participation-oriented managers is one of the most important predisposing factors in this study. In the participants’ view, this factor can strongly help the successful implementation of shared governance even in the absence of other predisposing parameters. Hence, it seems that even in institutions where all activities are done in a hierarchal system under the influence of the centered power of the senior manager, the shared governance may be applied. The higher-level managers of educational institutions can not only provide the infrastructural obligations for performing participatory affairs, but also empower themselves, lower level managers, and their staff in communication and participation skills and serve as the symbol of participatory model in the leadership position. Ultimately, the selection and appointment of the managers of institutions can be accomplished based on intrinsic and acquired characteristics appropriate for participatory performance and team work.