Work Technology and the Motive Profiles of Nurses

Abstract

The shortage of registered nurses for hospital work is a serious concern to health care providers, managers and planners (Meltz, 1988; Rachlis & Kush-ner, 1989). This shortage is related to a variety of factors, including absenteeism and turnover among nurses and the productivity of nurses on the job. There are both tangible (Cascio, 1982; Jones, 1990a, 1990b; Spencer, 1986; Wolf, 1981) and intangible (Mowday, Porter & Steers, 1982; Wolf, 1981) costs associated with both absenteeism and turnover; the reduction of them is thus a key component of planning for nurse staffing in many hospitals. The improvement of job satisfaction among nurses can play a role in the reduction of absenteeism (Bechtold, Szilagyi & Sims, 1980; Price & Mueller, 1986; Redfern, 1978), the reduction of turnover (Bechtold et al., 1980; Cotton & Tuttle, 1986; Curry & Wakefield, 1985; Kosmoski & Calkin, 1986; Moore & Simendinger, 1989; Petty, McGee & Cavender, 1984; Pres-cott, 1986; Price & Mueller, 1986), and in the improvement of productivity (Bechtold et al., 1980; Petty et al., 1984). There are many factors that influence work satisfaction (MacPhail, 1988; Mottaz, 1988). This paper is a study of one of them, the compatibility of nurses with the work available on the units on which they work. It is a widely accepted premise of those who study organizational behaviour (eg. Gibson, Ivancevich & Donnelly, 1988) that the outcomes of work (such as productivity, job satisfaction, turnover and absenteeism) depend upon the matching of the worker with the work. For example, if the worker and work are poorly matched with respect to skills, so that the worker does not have the skills necessary to do the job properly, productivity will be low and the worker will probably experience frustration and dissatisfaction with the job. Absenteeism and turnover can result. Workers and work can also be poorly matched with respect to need satisfaction. It can happen that the day to day execution of the work provides no intrinsic satisfaction to the worker, even though the worker is capable of doing the work. In this case also, productivity