The antecedents and consequences of nurse managers' perceptions of organizational support were evaluated. Study results revealed that changeable work environment factors are important precursors of perceptions of organizational support, which, in turn, result in positive work attitudes and better health.
Numerous initiatives have been developed to create healthy workplaces in healthcare settings. However, despite these efforts nurses continue to experience negative conditions in their work settings and report challenges to maintaining physical and mental health. Stronger incentives must be put in place to ensure that current healthcare settings meet evidence-based standards for healthy work environments.
Notes
Comment On: Healthc Pap. 2007;7 Spec No:26-3417478997
Comment On: Healthc Pap. 2007;7 Spec No:6-2517478996
Recruitment and retention of qualified nursing staff are vital to safe patient care and require the expertise of clinical educators to facilitate the nurses' professional development. However, organizational redesign has challenged clinical educators with role ambiguity, job stress, and decreased job satisfaction. This study used Kanter's Structural Theory of Organizational Behavior to examine the relationships between clinical educators' perceptions of empowerment, job tension, and job satisfaction. High levels of workplace empowerment were significantly related to low levels of job tension. In addition, the combination of high levels of empowerment and low levels of job tension was predictive of high levels of job satisfaction. Implications for staff development administrators are discussed.
The aim of this study was to test a multilevel model linking unit-level leader-member exchange quality and structural empowerment to nurses' psychological empowerment and organizational commitment at the individual level of analysis.
Few studies have examined the contextual effects of unit leadership on individual nurse outcomes. Workplace empowerment has been related to retention outcomes such as organizational commitment in several studies, but few have studied the impact of specific unit characteristics within which nurses work on these outcomes.
We surveyed 3,156 nurses in 217 hospital units to test the multilevel model.
A multilevel path analysis revealed significant individual and contextual effects on nurses' organizational commitment. Both unit-level leader-member exchange quality and structural empowerment had significant direct effects on individual-level psychological empowerment and organizational commitment. Psychological empowerment mediated the relationship between core self-evaluations and organizational commitment at the individual level of analysis.
The contextual effects of positive supervisor relationships and their influence on empowering working conditions at the unit level and, subsequently, nurses' organizational commitment highlight the importance of leadership for creating conditions that result in a committed nursing workforce.
The purpose of this study was to test Kanter's Theory (1977, 1993) of Structural Power in Organizations in a sample of Canadian critical care nurses. A secondary analysis of data from a larger descriptive correlational survey design was used to examine the relationships between perceived empowerment, perceived magnet hospital traits and critical care nurses' mental health (n = 75). The instruments in this study included the Conditions for Work Effectiveness Questionnaire II, the Job Activities Scale II, the Organizational Relationship Scale II, the Nurses Work Index-Revised, the Emotional Exhaustion Subscale, and the State of Mind Subscale. Empowerment was significantly and positively related to perceptions of magnet hospital traits (r = .49, p = 0.001). The combination of empowerment and magnet hospital traits explained a significant amount of the variance in mental health indicators: burn-out (19%) and state of mind (12%).
The effectiveness of methods for determining nurse staffing is unknown. Despite a great deal of interest in Canada, efforts conducted to date indicate that there is a lack of consensus on nurse staffing decision-making processes. This study explored nurse staffing decision-making processes, supports in place for nurses, nursing workload being experienced, and perceptions of nursing care and outcomes in Canada. Substantial information was provided from participants about the nurse staffing decision-making methods currently employed in Canada including frameworks for nurse staffing, nurse-to-patient ratios, workload measurement systems, and "gut" instinct. A number of key themes emerged from the study that can form the basis for policy and practice changes related to determining appropriate workload for nursing in Canada. These include the use of (a) staffing principles and frameworks, (b) nursing workload measurement systems, (c) nurse-to-patient ratios, and (d) the need for uptake of evidence related to nurse staffing.
To test the psychometric properties of a newly developed measure of staff nurse clinical leadership derived from Kouzes and Posner's model of transformational leadership.
While nurses have been recognized for their essential role in keeping patients safe, there has been little empirical research that has examined clinical leadership at the staff nurse level.
A non-experimental survey design was used to test the psychometric properties of the clinical leadership survey (CLS). Four hundred and eighty registered nurses (RNs) providing direct patient care in Ontario acute care hospitals returned useable questionnaires.
Confirmatory factor analysis provided preliminary evidence for the construct validity for the new measure of staff nurse clinical leadership. Structural empowerment fully mediated the relationship between nursing leadership and staff nurse clinical leadership.
The results provide encouraging evidence for the construct validity of the CLS.
Nursing administrators must create empowering work environments to ensure staff nurses have access to work structures which enable them to enact clinical leadership behaviours while providing direct patient care.
The purpose of this study was to test Leiter and Laschinger's Nursing Worklife Model linking structural empowerment to Lake's 5-factor professional practice work environment model and work quality outcomes. A predictive, nonexperimental design was used to test the model in a random sample of 234 staff nurses. The analysis revealed that professional practice environment characteristics mediated the relationship between structurally empowering work conditions and both job satisfaction and nurse-assessed patient care quality.
This study tested Kanter's structural empowerment theory within a university nursing student population. Differences in perceptions of empowerment among nursing students enrolled in either a problem-based learning (PBL) or a conventional lecture learning (CLL) program were examined, as well as the relationship between perceptions of structural empowerment in the learning environment and feelings of psychological empowerment. Participants completed measures of structural and psychological empowerment adapted to educational settings, as well as measures related to exposure to various learning strategies in their programs and clinical problem-solving abilities. Students in the PBL program (n = 41) had significantly higher perceptions of structural and psychological empowerment than students in the CLL program (n = 67). Regardless of academic program, structural empowerment was strongly positively related to psychological empowerment. The results of this study are the first to support the applicability of Kanter's theory to nursing education settings.
The purpose of this study was to test a model exploring the relationships among emotionally intelligent leadership behaviour, workplace empowerment and commitment. A predictive, non-experimental design was used to test the model in a random sample of 300 emergency staff nurses working in Ontario. A path analysis supported the fully mediated hypothesized model (chi(2)=2.3, df=1, p > .05; CFI=.99, IFI=.99, RMSEA=.08). Perceived emotionally intelligent leadership behaviour had a strong direct effect on structural empowerment (beta=.54), which in turn had a strong direct effect on organizational commitment (beta=.61).
