3.2 The formal responsibility and authority of the role
The findings showed that the leader role in bedside nursing were rather indistinct and vague with regard to formal
job-descriptions. Only thirteen leaders reported about written job-descriptions stating their responsibilities and authority.
Despite this lack of written documents all informants expressed awareness about the formal responsibility in their role.
The nurse leaders at Norwegian and Swedish hospitals and in Norwegian community care reported similar formal responsibility,
which concerned nursing quality, nursing administration/staffing, nursing environment and budget. The formal
responsibility of Swedish community care leaders differed from this, as it did not include nursing administration/
staffing and budget, and their responsibility for the nursing environment was vague. Despite this they stressed their
authority to decide about recruitment of extra personnel in extraordinary situations, and about patients’ transfer to hospital.