Aiming at addressing the ethical aspects concerning nurses' managerial activities, the authors of this work referred to Etzioni(1) and adopted a hospital classification as a reference of organization in which consent is based on the internalization of rules accepted as legitimate. Regarding patients, their need to adapt to medical behavior and hospital rules through internalization is considered to be a result of physicians', nurses' and the hospital's power. However, the authors view that such internalization is naive, without consent, especially by taking into account that most Brazilian patients do not know that they should or should not consent and are used to obeying. Thus, the work focused on nurses' managerial actions, indicating that they must be based on professional values, the Nursing ethical code as well as on the rights of hospitalized patients, thus integrating qualified care guided by respect, free consent and promotion of patients as the protagonists and subjects of care.
ethic; nursing; administration; management