Revisiting the impact of job satisfaction and organizational commitment on nurse turnover intention: An individual differences analysis

Background: Nurse turnover is an important contributing factor to the worldwide nursing shortage. Many studies have examined the antecedents of nurse turnover to gain a better understanding of the problem and help hospitals reduce their turnover rates. However, an important shortcoming of this research stream is its exclusive focus on explaining turnover behavior of the average nurse, thereby disregarding individual differences between nurses and groups of nurses. Objectives: To examine individual differences in the relationships between two crucial turnover antecedents - job satisfaction and organizational commitment - and nurse turnover intention. Participants: A sample of 287 nurses working for a variety of Belgian hospitals participated in the study. Methods: A survey method was used to collect quantitative data, which were analyzed through standard multiple linear regression, mixture regression models and t-tests. Results: In the total sample of hospital nurses, both job satisfaction and organizational commitment significantly predicted nurse turnover intention. However, subsequent individual differences analyses revealed the existence of two subgroups of nurses. In the satisfaction focused group, only job satisfaction was found to predict nurse turnover intention, whereas in the satisfaction and commitment focused group both job satisfaction and organizational commitment were related to turnover intention. Furthermore, nurses in the latter group displayed stronger turnover intention, were significantly younger and had less job tenure and organizational tenure than nurses in the satisfaction focused group. Conclusions: The debate on the antecedents of nurse turnover still continues, as the existing models fail to fully grasp nurse turnover. The present study identifies individual differences in nurse turnover antecedents among groups of nurses as a possible reason for the absence of one comprehensive turnover model that holds for the general nursing population. Further studies are needed in order to capture the total impact of the underlying individual differences in nurse turnover antecedents. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.