Navigating organizational injustice: An analysis of nurse managers' ethical trajectories

BackgroundNurse managers play a pivotal role in fostering organizational justice. Empirical understanding of their lived experiences when enacting this role amid organizational injustice affecting bedside nurses remains scarce.Research aimTo analyze the ethical trajectories of nurse managers navigating organizational injustice.Research designA secondary data analysis was conducted on nurse managers' narratives drawn from a primary dataset that explored healthcare managers' perspectives on, and experiences with, managing whistleblowing disclosures undertaken by care providers in healthcare settings.Participants and research contextThe study involved the secondary analysis of 18 narratives from nurse managers working within the Canadian healthcare system.Ethical considerationsThe study obtained ethical approval from the University of Ottawa Research Ethics Board.FindingsWhen navigating organizational injustice, nurse managers experience ethical trajectories marked by managerial courage, systemic moral erosion, and self-preservation agency. These trajectories highlight the complexities and tensions embedded in performing their role to promote organizational justice.ConclusionsNurse managers cannot sustain organizational justice through individual moral endurance alone; systemic structural transformations are imperative. Advancing toward an organizational ethics framework is essential to safeguard nurse managers' moral agency and render nursing leadership ethically sustainable.