Term of Award

1991

Degree Name

Master of Science in Nursing

Document Type and Release Option

Thesis (restricted to Georgia Southern)

Abstract

The purpose of this descriptive-correlational study was to investigate the importance of monetary factors on the job satisfaction of Registered Nurses (RNs) in the State of Georgia. There were 97 respondents to the random sample of nurses obtained from 32 hospitals in Georgia. Data was collected using a three part guestionnaire that included an 11 item rank order tool, a 44 item Likert-type tool, the Index of Work Satisfaction Scale (IWSS), and a 14 item demographic tool.

Organizational behavior researchers have long been interested in the major influences on job satisfaction as well as the outcomes that can be expected from such satisfaction. Frederick Herzberg is one theorist who has performed extensive research on satisfaction utilizing his Two-Factor theory. Herzberg's theory provided the theoretical framework for the study.

The research questions formulated for this study were:

1. What were the rankings of the factors identified as job satisfiers for the professional nurse in an acute care setting?

2. What were the strongest predictors of job satisfaction for the professional nurse in an acute care setting?

3. How did the rankings of the factors identified as job satisfiers compare to the strongest predictors of job satisfaction?

Analysis of the data utilized measures of central tendency, measures of dispersion, Pearson's Correlation Coefficient, and multiple regression analysis.

Findings of the study were not totally supportive of Herzberg's Two-Factor theory. RNs ranked the extrinsic factor of "salary and fringe benefits" as the most important job satisfier from Herzberg's 11 factors. However, the intrinsic factor of "professional status" was found to be the most predictive of job satisfaction using the IWSS tool.

Results from the IWSS tool demonstrated that the component "pay", was the only one that scored low in satisfaction.

Significant correlations were found to exist between several demographic variables and the six components of the IWSS with a p < 0.05.

The results of this research support recent studies on job satisfaction for the registered professional nurse. RNs indicated that monetary factors were the most important ranked job satisfier, however, RNs reported the most dissatisfaction with monetary factors. This suggests that nursing administrators may need to evaluate the salaries and pay scales that are available to their employees.

OCLC Number

1031846800

Copyright

To obtain a full copy of this work, please visit the campus of Georgia Southern University or request a copy via your institution's Interlibrary Loan (ILL) department. Authors and copyright holders, learn how you can make your work openly accessible online.

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