Off-campus UMass Amherst users: To download dissertations, please use the following link to log into our proxy server with your UMass Amherst user name and password.
Non-UMass Amherst users, please click the view more button below to purchase a copy of this dissertation from Proquest.
(Some titles may also be available free of charge in our Open Access Dissertation Collection, so please check there first.)
Reward strategies for the retention of professional nurses
Abstract
Both an aging population and widespread increases in chronic illnesses have placed greater demands on nursing care resulting in serious nursing shortages. Enrollment in nursing programs has declined for the past few years as other career opportunities for women have increased. Retaining the current nurse population and attracting people to nursing are critical to meeting future demands. This study was undertaken to investigate whether certain reward strategies within nursing lead to greater job satisfaction resulting in the retention of nurses. Motivation plays an important role in providing job satisfaction; job satisfaction results in people remaining in their jobs. The classic motivational theorists cited in this study were Maslow, Herzberg, and McClelland. According to the findings in the literature, the most prominent reward strategies in nursing are salary, primary nursing, and clinical ladder. These strategies are said to be directly related to job satisfaction in nursing. This study was designed to determine if these strategies improved job satisfaction and retention of professional nurses. This study was mailed to six hundred staff nurses randomly selected from the membership list of the Massachusetts Nurses Association; two hundred and thirty-eight returned questionnaires. The study was comprised of a Personal Data Questionnaire which asked about length of time in the job and reward strategies, and the Stamps and Piedmonte Index of Work Satisfaction, an attitude scale which addressed six components of job satisfaction: autonomy, organizational policies, pay, task requirements, interaction and professional status. The two statistical tests used on the data from both questionnaires were Chi square and three-way analysis of variance. Significant findings were: (1) Salary was the most influentional reward strategy for attracting or retaining nurses. (2) The component "professional status" provided the most job satisfaction regardless of education or time in the job; "autonomy" and "interaction" provided some satisfaction, while the components "pay", "task requirements" and "organizational policies" did not. (3) Nurses who worked in primary nursing settings were more satisfied with their jobs than those who did not. (4) Nurses who worked in settings with a clinical ladder were more satisfied with their jobs than those who did not.
Subject Area
Nursing
Recommended Citation
Bruce, Joan Ann, "Reward strategies for the retention of professional nurses" (1990). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI9100508.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9100508