An examination of the relationship between work commitment and work outcomes among hospital nurses

The goal of this study was to examine the relationship between work commitment (WC) forms (e.g., organizational commitment, job involvement, occupational commitment, work involvement, and Protestant work ethic) and work outcomes (e.g. withdrawal intentions from the organization, job and occupation, absenteeism, perceived performance, job-induced tension) among hospital nurses. Questionnaires were distributed to all the nurses in two hospitals in Western Canada. A total of 238 usable questionnaires were returned, a response rate of 47 percent. The findings showed the usefulness of WC in predicting work outcomes in the nursing profession. This support was based on the mutual effect of more than one commitment on organization and job withdrawal intentions, and on job-induced tension. The findings also emphasized the importance of occupational commitment as a predictor of work outcomes of nurses, and posed many questions about the usefulness of job involvement, which had no relationship to withdrawal intentions and a negative relationship to the other outcome variables to which it was related. The paper concludes with recommendations for future research about WC in the nursing profession.