Job satisfaction and organizational commitment for nurses

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1 Origial Articles Job satisfactio ad orgaizatioal commitmet for urses Ahmed S. Al-Aameri, PHD. ABSTRACT Objectives: The purpose of this study is to fid out the extet to which urses i public hospitals are satisfied with their jobs ad committed to their hospitals. Also, it is iteded to assess the relatioship betwee job satisfactio ad orgaizatioal commitmet, as well as to examie the effect of urses demographic factors o these 2 variables. Methods: Two-hudred ad iety urses workig i a umber of public hospitals are the sample size. The measures of the study are already tested for validity ad reliability. I this study, they are also examied ad foud to be valid ad reliable. The method of data collectio used was the questioaire to iclude a large sample. Results: The meas ad stadard deviatios show that urses are satisfied with their jobs to some extet, ad they are slightly committed to their hospitals. A strog positive correlatio betwee job satisfactio ad orgaizatioal commitmet was foud at 0.59 (p <.01). Also, age is sigificatly correlated with satisfactio ad commitmet, but experiece is correlated oly with the latter. Moreover, aalysis of variace shows that urses differ i their degree of commitmet i terms of their marital status ad atioality, whereas they differ i their degree of satisfactio oly with regard to their atioality. Coclusio: This study foud that urses i public hospitals are slightly satisfied ad committed to their hospitals. Besides, satisfied urses ted to have a higher degree of commitmet tha less satisfied oes. However, further research is eeded to examie this result before a geeralizatio is made. Keywords: Job satisfactio, orgaizatioal commitmet. Saudi Medical Joural 2000; Vol. 21 (6): N owadays, hospitals are cofrotig great competitio ad scarcer resources tha ever before. They are also severely challeged by the exteral ad iteral eviromet to achieve their goals effectively ad efficietly. Nurses, as the largest group of professioals, play a importat role i determiig the quality ad cost of healthcare. It is argued that they have the potetial to be part of solutios to key problems i health care systems. 1 Issues such as job satisfactio ad orgaizatioal commitmet for urses are of paramout importace for admiistrators ad maagers i health orgaizatios due to the crucial role they play i their orgaizatios performace. Nurses job satisfactio ad orgaizatioal commitmet are foud to ifluece hospital performace ad productivity. Research has geerally foud that satisfied employees are more productive ad committed to their jobs, whereas dissatisfied oes experiece abseteeism, grievaces ad turover. 2 I the ursig professio, moreover, job satisfactio was foud to be positively correlated with a umber of variables icludig patiet satisfactio ad quality of care. 2 This study is iteded to examie the level of job satisfactio ad orgaizatioal commitmet for urses i public hospitals i Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. While there are may studies coducted o satisfactio ad commitmet worldwide, o study was foud to examie this topic i public hospitals i Saudi Arabia. Therefore, the purpose of this study is From the Departmet of Public Admiistratio, College of Admiistrative Scieces, Kig Saud Uiversity, Riyadh, Kigdom of Saudi Arabia. Received 25th December Accepted for publicatio i fial form 9th March Address correspodece ad reprit request to: Dr. Ahmed S. Al-Aameri, Associate Professor, Departmet of Public Admiistratio, College of Admiistrative Scieces, Kig Saud Uiversity, PO Box 2459, Riyadh Tel (1) Fax (1)

2 to bridge this gab ad provide aswers to the followig questios: 1. To what extet are urses satisfied with their jobs? 2. To what extet are urses committed to their hospitals? 3. What are the relatioship betwee urses satisfactio ad orgaizatioal commitmet? 4. To what degree do demographic factors ifluece urses satisfactio ad commitmet? Literature review. Sice the Hawthore studies, job satisfactio ad commitmet to employig orgaizatios have received a great deal of attetio from both academicias ad practitioers. This is largely due to their sigificat impact o orgaizatio ad idividual behaviors. It was foud that employee attitudes toward satisfactio ad commitmet are idicators to the solidarity betwee orgaizatioal members ad maagemet. 1 Job satisfactio is widely researched ad researchers vary i their defiitios to the cocept. Smith 2 defies it as the feeligs of idividuals about their jobs. I the broadest sese, Koop 3 stated that it refers to a employees geeral attitude toward the job or some dimesios of it. Cumbey ad Alexader 4 cosider it as a effective feelig that depeds o the iteractio of employees, their persoal characteristics, values, ad expectatios with the work eviromet, ad the orgaizatio. Research has show that job satisfactio or dissatisfactio leads to a umber of cosequeces. It was revealed by may studies 2,3,5 that satisfactio leads to more productivity, high quality of care ad itet to remai i the orgaizatio. O the other had, job dissatisfactio was foud to icrease abseteeism, turover, high stress, ad grievaces. 2 The atecedets of job satisfactio are also examied by a umber of studies. 1,6,7 Oe of the soudig studies i this regard is Herzberg s two-factor theory of job satisfactio. He distiguished betwee factors leadig to satisfactio ad those leadig to dissatisfactio. Of the factors that icrease satisfactio are recogitio for achievemet, work itself, advacemet, etc. The factors that ifluece dissatisfactio are orgaizatioal policy ad admiistratio, supervisio, salary, iterpersoal relatioship, etc. 6 I additio, empirical research shows that leadership (democratic or autocratic), pay ad workig coditios, workload factors are determiats of job satisfactio. 7 Orgaizatioal commitmet is oe of the orgaizatioal cocepts that has widely bee examied i admiistrative literature due to its importace for orgaizatioal performace ad effectiveess. Orgaizatioal commitmet is see as the degree to which a employee is loyal to their orgaizatio. It is characterized by 3 factors acceptace of the orgaizatio s values; willigess to exert effort o behalf of the orgaizatio; ad desire to remai a employee of the orgaizatio. 8 Mowday ad Steers 9 cosider it as the relative stregth of a idividual s idetificatio with ad ivolvemet i a particular orgaizatio. Orgaizatioal commitmet was foud to have sigificat cosequeces o turover, productivity ad satisfactio. I a study coducted by Kersch, 5 it was revealed that orgaizatioal commitmet was positively correlated with urses itet to remai i the orgaizatio. This result is cosistet with what Porter et al 10 foud. They reported that commitmet is a better idicator of leavers ad stayers. Research also foud that commitmet is affected by a umber of factors such as leadership, job stress, ad orgaizatioal justice. 11,12 Almeer 12 foud egatively sigificat relatioships betwee role coflict ad ambiguity ad orgaizatioal commitmet. This meas as the role coflict ad ambiguity icrease, employees degree of commitmet decreases. Alajmi 11 asserted that orgaizatioal commitmet is correlated sigificatly with employees feeligs of fair treatmet ad fair procedure. The relatioship betwee orgaizatioal commitmet ad job satisfactio is also researched i may professios. Most of these studies whether i the ursig professio or other professios foud a positively sigificat relatioship betwee them. 2,3,5,12 This leads us to hypothesize i this study that urses job satisfactio ad orgaizatioal commitmet are positively related to oe aother. Methods. This study was coducted i public hospitals i Riyadh city. Usig the o-probability samplig techique ad accidetal samplig methods, 400 urses were selected from a umber of public hospitals to complete the desiged questioaire. Two hudred ad iety urses completed the questioaire ad the rest did ot retur it for ukow reasos. The respose rate was 72.5% which is very much acceptable i social research. 13 The participats were 220 females ad 64 males with a mea age of 34.6 years. These were 150 married, 84 sigle, 26 divorced ad 25 widowed. The sample also represeted differet atioalities such as Saudi, Arab, Filipio, Idia, America, ad Europea. The average experiece of the participats i their preset hospitals was 5.3 years. Istrumet. The istrumet used i this study is composed of 3 parts. Part oe deals with orgaizatioal commitmet. Commitmet is measured usig Mowday ad Steers s scale. 9 It icludes 15 statemets that represet possible feeligs that idividuals might have about the orgaizatio for which they work. The respose categories were: strogly agree (7), agree (6), slightly agree (5), either agree or disagree (4), slightly disagree (3), disagree (2), ad strogly disagree (1). The measure used was tested for validity ad reliability i may differet professios, icludig ursig. 2,3,9 I this study, the score of Crobach s 532 Saudi Medical Joural 2000; Vol. 21 (6)

3 Table 1 - ad stadard deviatios of satisfactio ad commitmet. Variable Job Satisfactio Orgaizatioal commitmet deviatio alpha was foud at Part 2 icludes job satisfactio which is measured usig Brayfield ad Rothe s scale of geeral satisfactio. 8 This measure cosists of 18 items that describe how idividuals feel about their preset job. The respose categories are five, which rage from strogly agree (5) to strogly disagree (1). The measure is tested for validity ad reliability ad it was foud valid ad reliable. 8 I this study, the score of Crobach s alpha was foud at Part 3 icludes a umber of demographic questios such as age, marital status, experiece, educatio, ad atioality. Procedures of data collectio. Four hudred urses workig i a umber of public hospitals i Riyadh city were cotacted ad a copy of the questioaire is delivered to them. A letter from the researcher explaiig the purpose of the study, data cofidetiality ad how the questioaire should be filled out was attached. Havig collected all the questioaires, a major revisio ad codig were carried out, which was followed by computer feedig. The statistical package used to aalyze the data was SPSS for Widows. After that, a umber of statistical techiques were employed to aswer the research questios. Results. To aswer the research questios a umber of statistical techiques were used. Descriptive aalyses were coducted first to aswer the study questios relevat to the level of job satisfactio ad orgaizatioal commitmet for urses i public hospitals. The meas ad stadard deviatios for these 2 variables are preseted i Table 1. Table 1 idicates that the majority of urses i public hospitals ted to be satisfied with their jobs as the mea of 3.67 shows. However, a few of them are ot satisfied as the stadard deviatio of 0.51 idicates. Because the group is ot large, oe ca deduce from these statistics that most urses ted to have positive attitudes toward their jobs. However, urses respose variatio may refer to persoal differeces which will be aalyzed later o. It is also idicated i Table 1 that most urses are slightly committed to their employig hospitals as the mea of 4.87 shows. The variatio amog urses resposes as idicated by the stadard deviatio of 0.94 is large. This idicates that some urses are strogly committed to their orgaizatios, while others are ot loyal to their hospitals. Still, there is a umber of them either committed or ucommitted to their employig istitutios (they have o attitudes). Perhaps this variatio relates to some persoal factors as upcomig aalysis may reveal. To assess the relatioship betwee the study variables, the correlatio coefficiets amog the differet variables were computed. Preseted i Table 2, the result shows a umber of sigificat correlatios amog the study variables. Job satisfactio ad orgaizatioal commitmet are foud to be positively related to oe aother. The correlatio coefficiet was foud at 0.59, idicatig a sigificat relatioship betwee these 2 variables. This result meas that urses who are satisfied with their jobs ted to show a high degree of commitmet to their employig hospitals. O the cotrary, urses who are dissatisfied with their jobs ted to show less loyalty to their hospitals. No relatioship betwee satisfactio ad the other demographic variables was foud except for age (0.23). This result meas that old urses are foud to be more satisfied tha youg urses. This ca be attributed to the fact that youg urses have just joied their orgaizatios ad they face a lot of challeges at the begiig of their career. Orgaizatioal commitmet is sigificatly correlated with age ad experiece ad o correlatio was foud with the rest of the variables. The correlatio with age was 0.15 ad with experiece This meas that old ad experieced urses Table 2 - Correlatios amog study variables. Variable Satisfactio Commitmet Age Experiece Educatio Satisfactio Commitmet 0.59** Age 0.23** 0.15* Experiece ** 0.41** Educatio *Sigificat at 0.05 **Sigificat at 0.01 Saudi Medical Joural 2000; Vol. 21 (6) 533

4 Table 3 - ANOVA for atioality ad orgaizatioal commitmet. Saudi Arab Filipio Idia Europea America a a 4.5 deviatio ** ** sigificat at 0.01 a - idicates that there is a differece betwee these two groups Table 4 - ANOVA for marital status ad satisfactio. Sigle Married Divorced Widowed a 3.83a 3.37b deviatio ** ** sigificat at 0.01 a, b - idicates that there is a differece betwee these two groups Table 5 - ANOVA for marital status ad commitmet. Sigle Married Divorced Widowed a a deviatio ** ** sigificat at 0.01 a - idicates that there is a differece betwee these two groups ted to be more loyal ad committed to their employig hospitals tha youg ad less experieced oes. To fid out the relatioship betwee atioality ad marital status as demographic variables ad satisfactio ad orgaizatioal commitmet, oe way Aalysis of variace (ANOVA) was coducted, ad the results are show i Table 3. The results preseted i Table 3 illustrate that there are sigificat differeces amog the differet atioals as the of 3.29 (p <.01) idicates. This meas that the level of urses commitmet to their hospitals differ accordig to their atioality. Oe ca see from Table 3 that Arab urses are more committed to their hospital tha other atioalities. But whe the Scheffee procedure was coducted, the oly differece foud was betwee Arab urses ad Europea oes. Europeas were foud to be less committed tha Arab oes. The other atioalities did ot differ from oe aother or from these 2 groups. However, this result eeds to be further examied before it ca be geeralized. With regard to satisfactio, ANOVA did ot show ay sigificat differeces amog urses differet atioalities. The associatio betwee marital status ad satisfactio ad commitmet was examied usig ANOVA. Table 4 shows the relatioship betwee marital status ad job satisfactio. As idicated i Table 4, ANOVA shows that there are sigificat differeces amog the 4 groups regardig their degree of job satisfactio. The least satisfied group is the widowed oe ad the most satisfied group is the divorced oe. Whe ruig Scheffee procedure, it was foud that the widowed group differed from married ad divorced groups but ot with the sigle group. Also, the sigle group did ot differ from the other 3 groups. Further research is eeded to examie this result. To examie the relatioship betwee marital status ad orgaizatioal commitmet, ANOVA was coducted. Table 5 idicates the results of this test. The F-ratio of 3.35 (P<.05) shows that there are sigificat differeces amog the differet groups i terms of their feeligs toward their hospitals. However, Scheffee procedure pipoits that the oly sigificat differece occurred is betwee the married group ad the widowed oe, where married urses shows more commitmet tha widowed oes. The rest of the groups did ot differ from oe aother. We should be cautious to geeralize this result util sufficiet evidece is provided. Discussio. The purpose of this research is to examie the extet to which urses are satisfied with their jobs ad committed to their hospitals. Also, it is iteded to fid out the relatioship betwee job satisfactio ad orgaizatioal commitmet ad the effect of some of the demographic variables o these 534 Saudi Medical Joural 2000; Vol. 21 (6)

5 2 variables. The results preseted above ca be discussed as the followig: First, most urses geerally ted to be satisfied with their jobs. A few urses are foud ot to be satisfied. This meas that the work ature ad eviromet i public hospitals is good eough for urses. However, officials i these hospitals should give more cosideratio to urses satisfactio due to its tremedous cosequeces. Secod, most urses slightly agree that they are committed to their employig hospitals. This meas that their degree of loyalty to their hospitals is ot strog eough, which gives sufficiet belief to say that if they fid a good offer elsewhere they will leave their hospitals. Public hospitals must work to improve urses commitmet ad loyalty. Third, a strog positive relatioship betwee satisfactio ad orgaizatioal commitmet is foud. This meas that satisfied urses ted to a show high degree of commitmet to their hospitals, whereas dissatisfied oes ted to have low degree of loyalty. This result is cosistet with the fidigs of previous studies. 2,3,12 Also, the fidigs show that old urses are more satisfied ad committed tha youg oes. Besides, more experieced urses are foud to be committed to their orgaizatios. If this result is prove to be correct, officials i public hospitals should cosider this i their selectio ad hirig of urses. Fourth, the atioality of a urse has some ifluece o his or her commitmet. It was foud that some atioalities are more committed to their hospitals tha other. Arab urses were foud to be the most committed group to their hospitals. The least committed group were the Europea oes. This may refer to cultural differeces, where Arab urses may fid the lifestyle i Saudi Arabia ad the work eviromet similar to their home coutries; therefore, they exhibit a high degree of commitmet. However, this result eeds to be further ivestigated before it ca be geeralized due to the fact that the umber of urses i each group is ot similar. Fifth, job satisfactio ad orgaizatioal commitmet are foud to be iflueced by urses marital status. Widowed urses are foud to be the least satisfied ad committed to their hospitals, whereas the divorced oes are the most satisfied ad the married urses are the most committed group. The lifestyle of each group may explai these results; evertheless, more research is eeded to examie these fidigs. I coclusio, this study provides ew support to previous research about the importace of satisfactio ad commitmet for orgaizatioal effectiveess ad performace. It also provides further evidece that the more satisfied the employees are the more committed they will be to their orgaizatios, ad the more they will be productive ad effective i their orgaizatios. This gives a clear message to all admiistrators ad magers i all healthcare orgaizatios to pay cosiderable attetio to the issue of job satisfactio ad orgaizatioal commitmet for urses ad other employees i their istitutios. Refereces 1. Toges M, Rothstei H, Carter H. Sources of Job Satisfactio i Hospital Nursig Practice. JONA 1998; 28: Smith D. Icreasig Employee Productivity, Job Satisfactio, ad Orgaizatioal Commitmet. Hosp Health Serv Adm 1996; 41: Koop R. Relatioships amog Job Ivolvemet, Job satisfactio ad Orgaizatioal Commitmet for Nurses. J Psychol 1995; 29: Cumbey D, Alexader J. The Relatioship of Job Satisfactio with Orgaizatio Variables i Public Health Nursig. JONA 1998; 28: Kirsch J. Staff Developmet Opportuity ad Nurses Job Satisfactio, Orgaizatioal Commitmet, ad Itet to Remai i the Orgaizatio. J Nurs Staff Dev 1990; Herzberg F. Work ad the Nature of Ma. Clevlad (USA): World Publishig; Nola M, Nola J, Grat G. Maitaiig Nurses Job Satisfactio ad Moral. Br J Nurs 1995; 4: Price J, Mueller C. Hadbook of Orgaizatioal Measuremet. Cambridge, Mass: Balliger Publishig Co; Mowday R, Steers R. The Measuremet of Orgaizatioal Commitmet. J Vocat Behav 1979; 14: Porter L, Steers R, Mowday R, Bovlia P. Orgaizatioal Commitmet, Job Satisfactio, ad Turover amog Psychiatric Techicias. J Appl Psychol 1974; 59: Alajmi R. Orgaizatioal Commitmet ad Employees Feeligs of Orgaizatioal Justice. Aledari 1997; 71: Almeer A. The Relatioship betwee Job Stress, Orgaizatioal Commitmet, Performace, Job Satisfactio, ad demographic factors. Joural of Public Admiistratio 1995; 35: Fowler F. Survey Research Methods. Newbury Park, Calif: Sage Publicatios, Ic; Saudi Medical Joural 2000; Vol. 21 (6) 535

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