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Show moreThis research proposes that the congruence between an individual’s expectations and their perceptions of the experiences upon entering a career affect the adaptation/coping strategies used to achieve a sense of organizational “fit.” Interviews conducted with newly graduated nurses and nursing students identified a variety of coping strategies used to deal with the stress of career transition. These adaptation strategies include personal, professional and social coping strategies. Congruence of expectations and experience, the presence of external stressors (long hours, nurse vacancies, high patient volumes), and the quality of orientation experiences and peer relationships require an individual to employ different adjustment strategies. An individual who successfully adjusts is said to be socialized. Failure to adjust leads to job burnout and job dissatisfaction.
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Show moreA sample of 89 hospital-based registered nurses with at least one year of experience were surveyed to ascertain their expectations and actual experiences in nursing work and determine if gaps between expectations and experiences exist. The nurses were also asked to specify the frequency of formal and informal training they participated in and what coping strategies they used to deal with these gaps. Lastly, the nurses were asked to assess their perception of job performance compared to peers, their level of job satisfaction, and their intention to turnover. The data collected was cleaned and coded for quality then analyzed using SPS 11.5. Items were factor analyzed to create constructs and resulted in the following constructs: (formal) service training by organizations, (informal) service training by peers, (formal) economic training by organizations, (informal) economic training by peers, service gap, economic gap, coping, perception of service performance, perception of economic performance, individual job satisfaction, organizational job satisfaction, and intent to turnover. Correlations between constructs were measured as well as individual construct item reliability (Cronbach’s alpha.) These constructs were then entered into regression models based on the conceptual model and significant paths between constructs were identified. An important finding of this study is that two distinct types of gaps exist in nursing work. Service gap results as nursing expectations about service work exceed actual service work experiences. Economic gaps, however, occur when actual economic requirements of nursing work exceed expectations about the economic elements of nursing. Service gaps were found to have negative effects on service and economic performance. Service gap was also determined to have a positive influence on individual job satisfaction. Economic gap was not found to have an effect on nursing outcomes. Formal service training was found to positively influence individual job satisfaction, perception of economic performance, coping strategies and negatively influence economic gap. Formal economic training also had a positive affect on individual job satisfaction. Informal service training negatively effected service gap and intent to turnover. It also positively influenced coping strategies and individual job satisfaction. Informal economic training had a negative effect on economic gap and a positive effect on service gap and intent to turnover. Coping strategies had a strong positive effect on perception of service performance and organizational job satisfaction. However, coping also had a positive impact on intent to turnover. Additional analysis was performed to understand this anomaly. Organizational job satisfaction had a negative effect on intent to turnover. Perception of performance did not have an effect on intent to turnover. The implications of these findings on nursing practice are explored. Recommendations to reduce service and economic gaps and the intent to turnover through the use of formal and informal service and economic training and coping strategies are suggested. Professional training programs and organizations are also encouraged to help nurses develop accurate expectations with respect to the service and economic aspects of nursing work.
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