Organisational commitment, job satisfaction and intent to leave among nurses at a public hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa

[摘要] The state of public health service and delivery in public hospitals in South Africa isconcerning. Allied to this, is the prevalence of nursing shortage experienced in publichospitals in the country. Nursing shortage is an outcome that results from various factors; onesuch factor is actual turnover, preceded by intent to leave. Intent to leave is a strong predictorof actual turnover. It has been found to be negatively correlated with organisationalcommitment and job satisfaction. Organisational commitment and job satisfaction stem fromvarious work states such job demands and job resources. It is important to understand that alloccupations have job demands that are to be met by the required and relevant job resources.Failure to meet job demands with job resources results in numerous negative employee andorganisational implications. In the nursing sector for instance, employee implications werefound to include undesirable work behaviours (such as intent to leave) exerted by nurseswhich ultimately affect the state of the healthcare service and healthcare delivery.The purpose of the current research was to investigate the nature of relationships that existamong organisational commitment, job satisfaction, demographic variables and intent toleave among nurses working at a public hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa. The researchpostulated three hypotheses that were tested and proven Hypothesis 1: Organisationalcommitment (O_C) statistically predicts intent to leave (I_T_L) among nurse working at apublic hospital; Hypothesis 2: Job satisfaction (J_S) statistically predicts intent to leave(I_T_L) among nurses working at a public hospital; Hypothesis 3: Demographic variablescan also statistically predict intent to leave (I_T_L) among nurses working at a publichospital. Furthermore, the research aimed to find the best predictive model of the data. Lastly,the research investigated the relative importance of each significant independent variable inpredicting intent to leave.The research design was a correlational cross-sectional. The public hospital received 200questionnaires, of which 136 questionnaires were returned, with only 112 usablequestionnaires to be analysed. Due to this, there were 112 participants. The sample fellpredominantly in the 26-35 and 36-45 age categories. On the data collection days, nursesworking in different wards received approximately three hours to complete a selfadministeredquestionnaire. Participants provided informed consent to be part of the research.The questionnaire collected demographic information, the respondent’s organisationalcommitment level, job satisfaction level and intent to leave level. All the three hypotheseswere statistically proven, as indicated by results of the multiple linear regression. O_C was astatistically significant predictor of I_T_L (p < .05) among nurses at a public hospital. J_Swas a statistically significant predictor of I_T_L (p < .05) among nurses at a public hospital.Nursing_position (category) as a demographic variable was also a statistically significantpredictor of I_T_L (p < .05) among nurses at a public hospital. Hierarchical regression foundthe best predictive model of the data; the final predictive model was Model 3, whichexplained 17.3% of the variance in intent to leave. Model 3 included organisationalcommitment, job satisfaction and nursing position (category). Model3 equation = 61.848 +2.395Nursing_position (category) + -.170O_C + -.111J_S.Lastly, the dominance analysis technique was applied in order examine the relativeimportance of each independent variable, to understand the role of each independent variable,and to assess the additional contribution of each independent variable in predicting intent toleave. O_C was found to have the additional contribution in predicting intent to leave. Thecurrent research showed that organisational commitment and job satisfaction remainapplicable when examining intent to leave in the organisational behaviour. Therefore, theresearch findings are consistent with what has been previously discovered in the mid-nineties.Numerous strategies and plans have been put forward to increase organisational commitmentand job satisfaction experienced by employees in order to mitigate nursing shortage, and torespond to the state of healthcare delivery in public hospitals. The challenge remains to be totranslate these strategies and plans into actions. As it stands currently, thi is the only way torespond meaningfully to the highlighted phenomenon.

[发布机构] University of the Witwatersrand