[Chains of action--chains of power. New requirements from nursing management. 2]

In what Badura (1993) referred to as "the slim hospital" and "the hospital without walls", one can detect new demands which are being made on personnel-management for "nursing 2000". Nursing management is a function of the personnel department of a business. It deals with a system in high tension, with a network of interrelated professional groups. It must cope with the way individuals and groups have developed new aims and concepts, it must deal with complex activities, with chains of power, it must address patterns of learning and communication. The work place of nursing must be seen as a "turbulent field". In order to humanise and improve the working situation of nurses one can make use of the knowledge of other disciplines. In the very least one should discuss it and think about it. As one example one might cite the research findings of management, dealing with so-called individualisation, a thesis especially important in the science of management. A starting point for the text which follows, is the assumption that ones nursing colleagues are not merely a collective of potential units of work, as might be the case if one adopts the model of "normal male working relationships". Instead here is a matter of the individual aims, wishes and needs of human beings. Social relationships, communication, interactions, thoughtful activities, good nursing care, must be encouraged and tolerated. Meaning will thus be realised and shared.