Balancing involvement: employees' experiences of merging hospitals in Sweden.

Background. The health care of today stands in front of demands on financial and structural changes. New technology and global economy are forces driving on the change process. Aims. The aim of this study is to describe and broaden the understanding of the employees' experience of being involved in a merger between two health care districts in Sweden. Methods. This study was carried out from a qualitative approach according to the grounded theory tradition. From a theme guide with specific questions, 31 interviews were carried out with employees working in the health care. Findings. Five categories emerged from the body of interviews: balancing involvement, trust respect, challenge and commitment. Balancing involvement was defined as an overall core category related to the other categories. The categories trust, respect, challenge and commitment were related to subcategories and affected the core category balancing involvement. Conclusions. The overall findings point to the importance of balancing the employees' involvement in order to reach goal fulfilment change in a merger process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]