Formal lines from nursing, therapy and a contracted physiatry group, then advice and trust ties drawn over them: an NU512 Unit 2 structure map of one rehabilitation unit. Searches like "nu 512 unit 2 assignment example", "nu512 unit 2 sample" and "nu512 unit 2 example" land here.
Three Reporting Chains and One Whiteboard: A Formal and Informal Structure Map of a Composite Acute Rehabilitation Unit
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
NU512: Leadership, Organizational Theory, and Behavior
Unit 2 Assignment
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The unit, its reporting lines and the survey results are composite; bracketed figures are the student's own.
Diagram 1: The Formal Structure
The formal chart has six lines of authority converging on the unit.
1. Nursing. Registered nurses, licensed practical nurses and nursing assistants report to the nurse manager, who reports to the director of nursing for medical and rehabilitation services and then to the chief nursing officer. The assistant nurse manager, the writer, reports to the nurse manager.
2. Therapy. Physical, occupational and speech therapists report to the rehabilitation services director, who reports to the vice president of operations, not to nursing.
3. Physicians. Physiatrists belong to a contracted group; the group's medical director holds an agreement with the hospital and reports, for contract purposes, to the chief medical officer.
4. Case management. Case managers report to the director of care management.
5. Pharmacy. A unit-based pharmacist reports to the director of pharmacy.
6. Environmental services. Housekeeping reports to a facilities director.
What the Formal Chart Decides
Counting boxes says little; counting decisions says more. Of [eleven] recurring decisions that shape a patient's day on this unit, the nurse manager holds [three] outright: nurse staffing, nursing assignments and the nursing care plan. The rest belong elsewhere.
1. Therapy start times and the daily therapy grid: rehabilitation services director, in practice a senior physical therapist.
2. Weekend therapy coverage: rehabilitation services director.
3. Team conference day and time: physiatry medical director.
4. Admission acceptance: physiatry, with case management.
5. Discharge date: physiatry and the team conference.
6. Equipment orders for home: therapy and case management.
7. Medication timing changes: physician order, pharmacy review.
8. Room cleaning sequence: environmental services.
The unit that patients and families experience as one place is governed by at least four departments, and nursing, the only discipline present twenty-four hours a day, controls fewer than a third of the decisions that shape the day.
Why the Unit Is Built This Way
The split is not an accident or a failure of design. Hospitals organize therapy as a service line because therapists work across many units, their productivity is measured and billed in minutes, and their professional supervision needs to come from within their disciplines. Nursing is organized by unit because nursing work is continuous and tied to beds. Lawrence and Lorsch (1967) showed that effective organizations differentiate their units to fit each unit's task and then invest in integration to bring the differentiated units back together. Our hospital has done the first well and the second hardly at all: there is no role, committee or shared measure whose job is to integrate nursing and therapy on this unit.
Bolman and Deal (2021) describe this as a structural frame problem: the organization has divided labor sensibly but lacks the coordinating mechanisms, lateral roles, shared goals or joint planning, that the division requires. Reading the chart through that frame keeps the analysis on the arrangement rather than on the people inside it.
The Dependency Table
For each department, the table records what the unit needs from it and who decides.
1. Therapy. Needs: session start times that match patient readiness; weekend coverage; carryover instructions. Decider: rehabilitation services director.
2. Physiatry. Needs: timely orders, team conference leadership, discharge decisions. Decider: physiatry medical director.
3. Case management. Needs: early discharge planning, equipment. Decider: director of care management.
4. Pharmacy. Needs: medication timing that does not collide with therapy. Decider: director of pharmacy, through physician orders.
5. Environmental services. Needs: rooms cleaned outside therapy hours. Decider: facilities director.
Diagram 2: The Informal Structure
The second diagram keeps the same boxes and redraws the ties from a two-question survey sent to all [forty-four] unit staff, with [thirty-eight] responding. The questions followed Krackhardt and Hanson's (1993) distinction between two informal networks. The advice question asked whom you go to when you need help getting your work done. The trust question asked whom you would talk to if something went wrong and you were not sure what to do.
Advice network. The person with the most advice ties was a senior physical therapist who builds the daily therapy grid, named by [twenty-one] respondents, including [nine] nurses. The night charge nurse, with nineteen years on the unit, was second. The nurse manager ranked sixth, behind two staff nurses, a speech therapist and the unit secretary, who is named whenever someone needs to know where a patient or a piece of equipment is.
Trust network. The trust network looked different. The night charge nurse was named most often, by [seventeen] respondents, almost all of them nurses. The senior therapist was named by only [four], all therapists. Between the two professions, trust ties were almost absent: [three] nurses named a therapist and [two] therapists named a nurse.
What the Two Diagrams Say Together
Krackhardt and Hanson (1993) argue that the advice network shows who holds practical know-how and the trust network shows who people confide in when something goes wrong, and that managers who look only at the formal chart miss both. On this unit, the two networks point to two different people, and neither holds formal authority over the other's profession. The senior therapist is the unit's practical hub for how the day runs, and she sits in a different reporting chain from nursing. The night charge nurse holds nursing's trust, and she works when therapy leadership is not in the building.
That pattern explains the huddle discussed in Unit 1. The huddle was designed by nursing's formal leaders, who ranked low in the advice network, and it never involved the senior therapist, who controls the grid in practice. A change that touches both professions will need both informal hubs, and the formal chart gives no one the authority to bring them together.
Limits of the Map
A two-question survey captures who people name, not how often they interact or how much the tie matters. Respondents may name people they think they should name. And the survey was sent by an assistant nurse manager, which may have made therapists less willing to answer the trust question candidly. The map is a starting point for conversations with the people at its center, not a verdict on anyone's influence. A repeat survey after any change would show whether new ties formed between the professions, which is itself a measure of integration.
References
Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2021). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership (7th ed.). Jossey-Bass.
Krackhardt, D., & Hanson, J. R. (1993). Informal networks: The company behind the chart. Harvard Business Review, 71(4), 104-111.
Lawrence, P. R., & Lorsch, J. W. (1967). Differentiation and integration in complex organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 12(1), 1-47. https://doi.org/10.2307/2391211
How this NU512 Unit 2 example is structured
Formal structure is drawn first because the informal layer means little without it. Commentary on the first diagram counts decisions rather than boxes: of eleven recurring decisions that shape a patient's day, the nurse manager holds three outright. Therapy start times, weekend therapy coverage, team conference scheduling and discharge dates all belong elsewhere, and the dependency table names the owner of each. Krackhardt and Hanson's distinction guides the second diagram: advice networks show who holds practical know-how, and trust networks show who people confide in when something goes wrong. A senior physical therapist who builds the daily therapy grid sits at the center of the advice map; a night charge nurse with nineteen years on the unit anchors the trust map. Last comes a forecast for any change that ignores either person.
Get an NU512 Unit 2 example written to your instructions
Which people on your unit have influence without a title? Name them by role, sketch who reports where, and attach the Unit 2 instructions with the rubric. From that, a model structure map with both layers arrives within 24-48h, the first one free. Names stay off the page, and your own map remains yours to draw. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
NU512 Unit 2 questions, answered
What counts as informal influence on a structure map?
Influence that operates without a position behind it: being asked for advice, being trusted with problems, controlling a schedule or information others need. The sample traces it through two survey questions rather than impressions. On many units the people carrying it are a senior clinician, a long-serving charge nurse or a unit secretary. A title can coexist with informal influence, but the map shows the two separately.
Do I need to survey my coworkers?
Not usually. Most sections accept a map built from observation and experience, provided the basis is stated. The sample's short survey is one way to make the informal layer checkable. If you use one, keep it anonymous, ask permission where your facility requires it, and replace names with role codes. Stating how the ties were identified matters more than the particular method chosen.
Which software should draw the map?
Whatever produces a legible diagram with a key. PowerPoint shapes, Visio, Lucidchart and draw.io are all common, and a clean hand drawing scanned at good resolution is accepted in some sections. What graders check is readability: distinguishable line styles for formal and informal ties, labeled roles, and a diagram that matches the commentary written beneath it.