Regulating time commitments in healthcare organizations: managers' boundary approaches at work and in life.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore managers' boundary setting in order to better understand their handling of time commitment to work activities, stress, and recovery during everyday work and at home.

Design/methodology/approach: The paper has qualitatively-driven, mixed method design including observational data, individual interviews, and focus group discussions. Data were analyzed according to Charmaz' view on constructivist grounded theory.

What health care managers do: applying Mintzberg's structured observation method.

Aim The aim of the present study was to explore and describe what characterizes first- and second-line health care managers' use of time. Background Many Swedish health care managers experience difficulties managing their time. Methods Structured and unstructured observations were used.