| Course | NR 703 Applied Organizational and Leadership Concepts |
|---|---|
| Week | 6 |
| Paper type | Incentive analysis |
| Length | About 1,100 words, 6 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Chamberlain University |
| Program | MSN, Nurse Executive |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for NR 703 Week 6
Incentive Analysis: What the Hospital Says It Wants at Shift Report Against What It Counts and Acts On, Followed Through One Week on Nights
Student Name
College of Nursing, Chamberlain University
NR 703: Applied Organizational and Leadership Concepts
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
Incentive Analysis: What the Hospital Says It Wants at Shift Report Against What It Counts and Acts On, Followed Through One Week on Nights
Stated Against Counted
| What the organization says it wants | What it counts and acts on |
|---|---|
| Bedside report at every handoff (policy; sign by the time clock) | Overtime minutes per unit, reported monthly to the director and the finance office |
| Patients involved in their care (patient experience goals) | Patient experience survey scores on nurse communication, reported quarterly |
| Safe handoffs (safety program) | Falls and medication errors, reported monthly |
| Staff well-being (town hall, 2025) | Turnover and vacancy rates, reported quarterly |
| Teamwork across shifts (unit values poster) | Nothing |
The left column comes from written sources: the policy, the posters, the strategic plan summary and the town hall slides. The right column comes from the reports that go upward each month and from what managers are asked about.
The Silent Rows
The rows with nothing in the right-hand column tell their own story, and it is a quiet one. Bedside report itself is not counted. Audits are done by the clinical nurse specialist when time allows, three or four times a year, and are not reported upward. Teamwork across shifts has no measure at all. A goal with no count has no consequence when it is missed, however often it is repeated.
One Behavior, Followed Through a Week
The behavior: night nurses giving 07:00 report at the station rather than the bedside.
Monday: a night nurse gives report at the bedside for two patients and at the station for three, clocks out at 07:41. The overtime report records 11 minutes.
Tuesday: the same nurse gives all report at the station, clocks out at 07:29. No overtime.
Wednesday: the unit manager receives the monthly overtime report, which shows the unit above its target, and sends an email reminding staff to clock out on time "unless there is a patient care need."
Thursday: night nurses discuss the email at the station. Bedside report that morning: none.
Friday: no one mentions bedside report; the audits are not running that week.
The behavior satisfies the counted column, overtime, and costs nothing in the stated column, because bedside report is not counted that week. Kerr's argument, that organizations often pay for one behavior while hoping for a different one, fits exactly (Kerr, 1975).
Incentives That Are Not Money
Money is only one of the reasons people do what they do when a twelve-hour night is finishing. Getting home: several night nurses, by their own account, drive more than 40 minutes and take children to school; ten minutes late at 07:30 can mean missing the school drop. Approval: the thank-you card in the lounge praises nights for getting out on time. Avoiding attention: an overtime minute puts a nurse's name on a report the manager reads; a skipped bedside report puts it nowhere. None of these involves pay, and all point the same way. The paid overlap addresses only the third, the name on the overtime report; getting home and the approval of peers are unchanged, which may explain why the pilot reached about 62% rather than more.
How Managers Experience the Counted Column
Incentives reach staff through managers, so the manager's view of the numbers matters. The unit manager receives the overtime report on the second Wednesday of each month and is asked about it at the director's monthly meeting. Patient experience scores arrive quarterly, aggregated across many units and several months, so the manager cannot connect them to any one shift's report. A manager answering for overtime monthly and for experience scores quarterly will, reasonably, act on the monthly number. The incentive runs through the manager to the staff, not only to the staff directly. When the manager's reminder email mentioned overtime and not bedside report, it carried the organization's priority to every nurse who read it.
Why Culture Does Not Explain This Alone
The culture assessment found that night shift tells newcomers not to wake patients for report. That norm protects patients' sleep and fits the organization's counted measures. Culture describes how the behavior is taught; the incentive explains why the culture has had no reason to change (Schein & Schein, 2017). A culture that cost nurses a name on the overtime report every morning would be harder to sustain.
What Patients Lose
One evaluation of bedside handoff found patients rated nurse communication more highly after it began (Sand-Jecklin & Sherman, 2014). Patient experience scores are counted, but quarterly and in aggregate, so the loss at 07:00 on one unit is invisible in them. The organization counts the outcome too slowly and too broadly to connect it to the behavior.
What the Pilot Changes in the Columns
The paid overlap moves fifteen minutes out of the overtime count and into scheduled time. Bedside report no longer costs the nurse a name on the overtime report. If incentives are driving the behavior, bedside report should rise during the pilot; the clinical nurse specialist is auditing weekly to find out.
What the Night Nurses Said
Asked informally, five night nurses gave the same account in different words: they believe in bedside report, they do it at 19:00 when they receive report, and at 07:00 they do what gets them home on time without trouble. One said, "Nobody ever asked me why I don't do it at seven. They just sent another email about doing it." Their account matches the incentive reading more closely than any other.
Stopping Before the Remedy
This analysis does not propose counting bedside report, changing the overtime target or adding rewards. Those would be remedies, and the purpose here is to show why the behavior persists. Adding a count without understanding the culture could produce report done at the bedside in name only, with nurses standing in the doorway for ten seconds so that an audit can record it. The analysis's job is to make the mechanism clear enough that a remedy, when chosen, addresses the cause. A remedy that adds a new count while leaving overtime counted the same way would set two measures against each other at the same handoff, and nurses would have to choose which one to fail.
What the Analysis Leaves Out
Whether nurses would choose bedside report if overtime were not counted. The pilot will show part of that answer.
References
Kerr, S. (1975). On the folly of rewarding A, while hoping for B. Academy of Management Journal, 18(4), 769-783. https://doi.org/10.2307/255378
Sand-Jecklin, K., & Sherman, J. (2014). A quantitative assessment of patient and nurse outcomes of bedside nursing report implementation. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 23(19-20), 2854-2863. https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.12575
Schein, E. H., & Schein, P. (2017). Organizational culture and leadership (5th ed.). Wiley.
NR 703 Week 6 instructions, in plain terms
Build two columns. On one side, what the organization says it wants, taken from written sources such as policies, posted expectations and town hall slides. On the other, what it counts and acts on: items on review forms, figures sent upward each month, conditions on bonuses and who gets called when a number slips. Note the rows where the second column is silent. Then take one behavior everybody complains about and follow it through a week, showing how it satisfies the counted column. Include incentives that are not money. Describe how managers experience the counts. Stop before proposing a remedy, since the task is to explain the behavior.
Inside the NR 703 Week 6 example
The sample's table sets bedside report, patient involvement, safe handoffs, staff well-being and teamwork against overtime minutes, quarterly experience scores, falls, turnover and nothing. Bedside report and teamwork have no count. A week follows one night nurse: overtime on Monday after bedside report, none on Tuesday after station report, a manager's overtime email on Wednesday and no bedside report on Thursday, fitting Kerr's argument. Non-money incentives include school runs and the thank-you card. The pilot moves fifteen minutes out of the overtime count. Night nurses describe believing in bedside report but doing what gets them home, and the analysis stops before remedies. It explains that managers answer for overtime monthly and for experience scores only quarterly, and records what patients lose at 07:00.
Where the points sit in the NR 703 Week 6 rubric
Incentive analyses lose most when they blame individuals for behavior that the organization's counts make rational. Next is a stated-goals column drawn from memory rather than written sources, which weakens the comparison. Many analyses list counted measures without following any behavior through time, so the mechanism stays invisible. Incentives that are not money, such as getting home or peer approval, are often left out. Analyses that jump to remedies, such as counting the neglected behavior, skip the explanation and risk creating box-ticking. Leaving out what staff say about their own behavior misses the easiest test of the analysis. Analyses that skip how managers experience the counts also miss how incentives travel to staff. Few analyses record what the people whose behavior is analyzed say about it.
NR 703 Week 6 help from the desk
Comparing what an organization says with what it counts can be uncomfortable when you work there. A guided draft can help you build both columns from written sources, find the silent rows and follow one behavior through a week. We can also help you include incentives that are not money and stop before proposing remedies. Asking staff why they do what they do, without judgment, often confirms or corrects the analysis. The analysis is yours. Recording what staff themselves say about the behavior is worth doing too.
Get a NR 703 Week 6 example written to your instructions
Send your Week 6 prompt and rubric, plus the dispute you want explained and anything you know about how each side is measured. A custom incentive analysis comes back inside 24-48h, with nothing to pay on the first. Figures from your employer's own review forms are not ours to invent, so send what you have or ask for a constructed set.
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NR 703 Week 6 questions, answered
What if I cannot see anyone's review form?
You rarely can, and the assignment does not require it. Build the measured column from what is visible: which numbers get asked about in a huddle, what appears on a posted board, what somebody is telephoned about after hours. A behavior that draws a phone call is measured whether or not it appears on a form, and describing it that way is honest about your evidence.
Is this the same as a motivation theory paper?
Related but pointed differently. A motivation paper asks what makes people want to do things. This one asks what the organization has arranged to pay attention to, which produces behavior regardless of what anybody wants. The distinction matters because it locates the explanation in an arrangement somebody built rather than in the character of the staff.
Can I write about an incentive that works well?
Yes, and those versions often read better because they are not defensive. A well-aligned pair, where the counted item and the asked-for behavior are the same thing, still needs explaining: somebody designed that alignment, usually after a period when it was absent. Tracing how a form came to count the right item is a full analysis and avoids the complaint register entirely.
Where can I find a free NR 703 Week 6 sample paper?
Here you will find the complete incentive analysis of bedside shift report against what the hospital counts.
Why does the NR 703 Week 6 analysis stop before a remedy?
Its task is to explain why the behavior persists, and a remedy chosen too soon, such as counting bedside report, could produce box-ticking instead of change.