The relationship between work status congruency and

The International Journal of Human Resource Management

ISSN: 0958-5192 (Print) 1466-4399 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rijh20

The relationship between work status congruency and the job attitudes of full-time and part-time Canadian and Jordanian nurses Marjorie Armstrong-Stassen , Rowaida Al-Ma , Sheila J. Cameron & Martha E. Horsburgh To cite this article: Marjorie Armstrong-Stassen , Rowaida Al-Ma , Sheila J. Cameron & Martha E. Horsburgh (1998) The relationship between work status congruency and the job attitudes of fulltime and part-time Canadian and Jordanian nurses, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 9:1, 41-57, DOI: 10.1080/095851998341189 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/095851998341189

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Date: 19 February 2017, At: 23:17

The International Journal of Human Resource Management 9:1 February 1998

The relationship between work status congruency and the job attitudes of full-time and part-time Canadian and Jordanian nurses

Marjorie Armstrong-Stassen, Rowaida Al-Ma’aitah, Sheila J. Cameron and Martha E. Horsburgh Abstract This study compared the coping resources, coping strategies and job-related attitudes of full-time and part-time nurses. The participants were 554 Canadian nurses and 272 Jordanian nurses. There was only one signi cant difference between full-time and part-time nurses: full-time Canadian nurses reported higher emotional exhaustion than part-time Canadian nurses. However, a different picture emerged when work status congruency was taken into account. Canadian nurses working full time but preferring to work part time reported greater dissatisfaction with various aspects of their jobs, higher levels of emotional exhaustion and a greater intention to leave. Although not statistically signi cant, a similar trend was found for the Jordanian nurses. Perceived organizational support was the most important predictor of job-related attitudes for nurses in both countries, even though nurses in both countries rated the support from their hospitals as relatively low. The results indicate that researchers should not treat full-time and parttime workers as homogeneous groups and that hospital administrators in both Canada and Jordan need to address the level of hospital support perceived by their nursing staff. Keywords

Full-time/part-time workers, work status congruency

The International Labour Organization (ILO) recently reported that part-time work is increasing globally (The Globe and Mail, 1993). The ILO noted that the growth of parttime work has coincided with the increased participation of women in the labour force and that most of the part-time jobs are held by women. Women dominate the nursing work-force globally (Villeneuve, 1994) and many women in nursing work on a parttime basis. For example, over one-third of Canadian nurses are employed on a part-time basis (Wetzel et al., 1990). In fact, part-time employment in nursing has increased at a much faster rate than part-time employment in Canada in general (White, 1992). Nurses therefore are an appropriate population for the study of part-time workers because of the large numbers of nurses who work part time and the universality of the nursing profession. Despite the growth of part-time workers world-wide, there has been relatively little research on the job attitudes and organizational experiences of part-time employees (Bishop et al., 1993) and part-time nurses in particular (Hackett and Bycio, 1993). Lee and Johnson (1991) noted the need to identify any systematic differences in the job attitudes of full-time and part-time employees so that alternative human resource management practices could be developed for each group. The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether or not differences exist between full-time and parttime nurses from two relatively divergent countries: Canada and Jordan. 0985–5192

© Routledge 1998

42

Marjorie Armstrong-Stassen et al.

The existing research comparing full-time and part-time workers has been largely atheoretical and there has been little attempt made by researchers to place empirical ndings within a conceptual framework (Lee and Johnson, 1991). In the present study, we compared full-time and part-time nurses within a stress and coping theoretical framework. Speci cally, the transactional stress model of Lazarus and Folkman (1984) proposes that coping resources and coping strategies mediate the impact of a stressful situation on attitudinal and behavioural outcomes. A stress model is particularly relevant for this study because the nursing profession has been found to be highly stressful (Blegen, 1993; Gray-Toft and Anderson, 1981). Moreover, part-time nurses have been found to experience greater role stress and job tension than full-time nurses (Steffy and Jones, 1990). According to the stress and coping model, nurses who have access to coping resources and who engage in more adaptive coping strategies should be less likely to experience the negative effects of stress related to the work demands of the nursing profession. The coping resources we examined in this study were perceived organizational support, perceived support from one’s immediate supervisor and perceived support from one’s co-workers. According to Barker (1993), researchers have neglected the importance of workplace social relations in comparing full-time and part-time employees. Barker suggested that part-time workers may experience greater peripherality which results in low participation in organization activities and marginality in social relationships. In their study of the job attitudes of full-time and part-time employees, Miller and Terborg (1979) proposed the concept of partial inclusion which posits that part-time employees may be less included in the organization’s social system. Duffy and Pupo (1992) noted that the growing use of part-time nurses in Canadian hospitals and the rede nition of the professional nurse’s role provide nurses with fewer opportunities to develop relationships with co-workers. There is also some evidence (e.g. Feldman and Doerpinghaus (1992)) that part-time nurses may not receive the same treatment, especially in terms of the amount of respect and recognition, by their supervisors. We therefore predicted that the part-time nurses in our study would perceive signi cantly lower support from their hospital, supervisor and co-workers than the full-time nurses. Hypothesis 1:

Full-time nurses will perceive signi cantly greater support than parttime nurses.

Coping may either be directed at managing or altering the problem causing the distress (problem-focused coping) or directed at regulating emotional response to the problem (emotion-focused coping) (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984). According to Lazarus and Folkman, problem-focused coping is more probable when people feel they can take some action whereas emotion-focused coping is more likely to occur when people feel that there is nothing they can do about the situation except to accept it. In the present study, problem-focused coping was represented by direct action coping and emotionfocused coping was re ected in avoidance/resignation coping. Direct action coping consists of task-focused problem-solving efforts, whereas avoidance/ resignation coping re ects avoidance of the situation along with passive resignation (Latack et al., 1992). There are no empirical studies that have compared the coping strategies of full-time and part-time employees. However, Tucker (1993) found that temporary employees were more likely to respond to offensive employer behaviour in non-aggressive ways, including toleration and resignation. Tucker posited that temporary employees are less

Job attitudes of full-time and part-time Canadian and Jordanian nurses

43

willing to respond in a more proactive way because they are loosely tied to their organizations and to one another. We therefore predicted that part-time nurses would be more likely to resort to avoidance/resignation coping strategies whereas full-time nurses would be more likely to engage in direct action coping. Hypothesis 2:

Full-time nurses will be signi cantly more likely to engage in direct action coping than part-time nurses whereas part-time nurses will be signi cantly more likely to resort to avoidance/resignation coping strategies than full-time nurses.

Stress has been found to be a major determinant of nurses’ level of job satisfaction (Fisher, 1985; McLaney and Hurrell, 1988; Wolfgang, 1995), experienced burnout (Harris, 1989) and turnover intention (Fisher, 1985; Jamal, 1990). Thus, the outcome variables we included in this study were facet job satisfaction (satisfaction with kind of work, amount of work, working conditions and career future), burnout and turnover intention. Given our predictions that, compared to nurses working full time, part-time nurses would have lower perceived support and would be more likely to resort to avoidance/resignation coping, we expected that nurses working part time would experience more negative outcomes. Although the studies examining the job satisfaction of full-time and part-time workers have yielded inconsistent results, some researchers (e.g. Miller and Terborg, 1979; Vecchio, 1984) have found that, compared to their full-time colleagues, part-time employees reported lower job satisfaction. Burnout has not been examined in the context of full-time and part-time workers, but Wetzel et al. (1990) suggested that part-time employment may be a way for a nurse to cope with stress and burnout. This implies that nurses experiencing high burnout may opt for part-time employment status. And the research does indicate that part-time workers have higher levels of turnover than full-time workers (Feldman, 1990). We therefore predicted that, compared to nurses working full time, part-time nurses would report lower facet job satisfaction, higher levels of burnout and a greater intention to leave the hospital. Hypothesis 3:

Full-time nurses will report signi cantly higher levels of facet job satisfaction and lower levels of emotional exhaustion and turnover intention than part-time nurses.

Bishop et al. (1993) proposed that congruence between actual work status and desired work status plays a major role in in uencing workers’ attitudes and behaviours. These researchers argued that employees in congruent jobs (i.e. working full time and desiring to work full time or working part time and desiring to work part time) would be more satis ed with their jobs than employees with an incongruent work status (i.e., working full time but desiring to work part time or working part time but desiring fulltime employment). To determine if congruency of work status does have an effect, we categorized the nurses into four groups: nurses who were working full time and who preferred to work full time (FT/FT); nurses who were working full time but who preferred to work part time (FT/PT); nurses who were working part time and who preferred to work part time (PT/PT); and those who were part time but who preferred to work full time (PT/FT). Finally, we sought to identify which support and coping variables were the most important predictors of facet job satisfaction, emotional exhaustion and turnover

44


intention for each sample while controlling for a number of demographic variables including length of time employed, age, marital status, number of children and work status. Method Participants and procedure The participants consisted of 554 Canadian and 272 Jordanian female nurses. For the Canadian nurses, 337 (62 per cent) were employed full time and 210 (38 per cent) were employed part time (seven respondents did not respond to this item). For the Jordanian nurses, 228 (85 per cent) were employed full time and 40 (15 per cent) were employed part time (four respondents did not respond to this item). The average age of the Canadian nurses was 39.68 years ( SD 5 8.51) and they had been employed by the hospital an average of 11.50 years (SD 5 7.48). The majority (73 per cent) were married. The average age of the Jordanian nurses was 27.49 years (SD 5 5.42) and they had been employed by the hospital an average of 4.22 years (SD 5 4.50). Fifty-one per cent were married. We administered survey questionnaires to nurses working in four community hospitals in Ontario, Canada, and to nurses working in six hospitals in Amman and northern Jordan. For the Jordanian sample, the questionnaire was translated into Arabic and then back into English to ensure that the wording and meaning of the items were accurate. Measures Perceived support Perceived organizational support was assessed with the 17-item version of the Survey of Perceived Organizational Support (SPOS) developed by Eisenberger et al. (1986). This scale measures employees’ beliefs concerning the extent to which the organization values their contribution and cares about their well-being. We modi ed the wording slightly by changing the word ‘organization’ to ‘hospital’. Perceived supervisor and co-worker support were measured with the Supervisor Support and Co-worker Support scales developed by Caplan et al. (1975). Coping strategies We assessed coping with items from the coping scale developed by Latack (1986; Latack et al., 1992). This is one of the few coping measures speci cally developed for coping with work-related stressors. The 4-item direct action scale re ects task-focused problem-solving efforts such as ‘Throw myself into my work and work harder, longer hours’ and ‘Try to work faster and more ef ciently’. The 9-item avoidance/resignation scale re ects avoidance of the situation along with passive resignation. Examples of these items are ‘Try not to get concerned about it’ and ‘Accept this situation because there is nothing I can do to change it’. Outcome variables Facet job satisfaction was assessed with the satisfaction with kind of work, amount of work, physical working conditions and career future subscales from the Index of Organizational Reactions (Dunham et al., 1977). Burnout was represented by the emotional exhaustion subscale of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (Maslach and Jackson, 1981). Schaufeli et al. (1993) noted that emotional exhaustion is the best validated dimension of the burnout syndrome. We assessed turnover intention with the 3-item Propensity to Leave scale developed by Lyons (1971). Except for the emotional


45

exhaustion scale, all of the above measures had a 5-point response scale. Emotional exhaustion had a 4-point response scale ranging from ‘never’ to ‘all the time’. Demographic variables To provide some background information on the nurses in each sample we included several demographic variables such as age, marital status, number of children, education, length of time employed on the unit, in the hospital and as a nurse in a hospital setting. Data analysis We used multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA), with hospital tenure as the covariate, to test for a signi cant overall effect of work status on perceived support, coping strategies and the outcome variables. Univariate analysis of variance (ANCOVA) and Tukey’s studentized range (HSD) test were employed to identify signi cant differences between the different work status groups. Klockars and Sax (1988) recommended that Tukey’s studentized range (HSD) test be used for multiple comparisons when there are unequal sample sizes. Only three categories (FT/FT, FT/PT and PT/PT) were used for the Jordanian sample because the number (n 5 8) of Jordanian nurses working part time but preferring to work full time was too small to allow for meaningful comparisons. We also conducted separate hierarchical regression analyses for the Canadian and Jordanian samples to identify the most important support and coping predictors of the outcome variables. In the rst step, we entered length of time employed on the unit, in the hospital and as a nurse, age, marital status (single or married), number of children and the work status variables. We effects coded the work status variables and used FT/FT as the comparison group. In the second step, we entered the support variables and in the nal step we entered the coping variables. Results The overall means and standard deviations, reliability coef cients, and zero-order correlations are presented in Table 1. All of the measures for both samples had Cronbach’s alphas above .70 except for avoidance/resignation coping which was below .70 for the Canadian sample. We conducted t-tests to determine if there were signi cant differences on any of the measures between the Canadian and Jordanian nurses. These t-values are shown in the last row of Table 1. Canadian and Jordanian nurses perceived similar levels of perceived support from their hospitals and supervisors. What is noteworthy is the low level of perceived organizational support that nurses in both countries reported. Compared to the Canadian nurses, Jordanian nurses reported signi cantly lower support from their co-workers. Jordanian nurses reported signi cantly greater use of direct action coping whereas Canadian nurses were more likely to engage in avoidance/resignation coping. For the facet job satisfaction measures, Canadian and Jordanian nurses reported similar levels of satisfaction with career future. Compared to the Canadian nurses, Jordanian nurses expressed signi cantly less satisfaction with the kind of work they were performing, the amount of work and their physical working conditions. Jordanian nurses reported signi cantly higher levels of emotional exhaustion and greater intention to leave. Thus, although there was some similarity between these nurses from two relatively divergent countries, especially for perceived support, there were also some notable differences, speci cally in the areas of

2.50 .70 2.48 .70 .31

3.08 .96 3.20 1.04 2 1.54

Action

3.69 3.25 .76 .72 3.38 3.80 .88 .68 4.94** 2 10.21***

.14** .19** .17** .10* .83/.84 .11* .18** .72/.75 2 .03 .21** .25** .32** .26** .21** .30** .23** .11 .17** 2 .12 2 .07 2 .12 2 .18**

Cowkr

Kind

Amt

Cond

Future

EE

3.03 .48 2.86 .61 4.14***

3.73 .78 3.19 .96 7.79***

2.69 .81 2.57 .84 1.96*

3.10 .84 2.82 1.08 3.75***

2.56 .76 2.50 .97 .83

2.04 .53 2.62 .56 2 13.93***

2 .49** .21** .46** .46** .45** .59** 2 .28** .02 .26** .31** .24** .31** 2 .23** .03 .30** .22** .23** .15** 2 .16** .14** .29** .18** .18** .15** 2 .11* 2 .12* 2 .08 2 .15** .60/.70 .17** 2 .08 2 .57** .88/.86 .50** .48** .43** 2 .01 2 .62** .53** .86/.74 .53** .43** 2 .10 2 .47** .45** .44** .92/.94 .43** 2 .08 2 .48** .58** .49** .55** .78/.81 2 .33** 2 .46** 2 .31** 2 .53** .87/.82 .16* 2 .48** 2 .39** 2 .46** 2 .56** .11 .38** 2

2

Avoid

2.33 1.03 3.13 1.17 2 9.51***

.49** .87/.88

2 .45**

2 .48**

2 .38**

2 .50**

.10*

2 .18**

2 .25**

2 .27**

2 .44**

Turn

Notes Correlations for the Canadian nurses appear above the diagonal and correlations for the Jordanian nurses appear below the diago nal. Cronbach’s coef cient alphas are shown in bold on the diagonal. The coef cient appearing before the slash is for the Canadian nurses and that followi ng the slash is for the Jordanian nurses. * p , .05 ** p , .01 ** p , .001

M SD Jordanian M SD t-values

Canadian

.94/.91 .40** .29** .85/.89 .06 .36** .01 .21** 2 .02 .06 .35** .30** .43** .30** .45** .28** .54** .29** 2 .42** 2 .11 2 .49** 2 .27**

Org’l support Supervisor supp. Co-worker supp. Direct action Avoid/resign Kind of work Amount of work Work conditions Career future Emot’l exhaust. Turnover intent.

Supr

Org

Measures

Table 1 Means, standard deviations, coef cient aplhas and zero-order intercorrelations

46 Marjorie Armstrong-Stassen et al.


47

direct action coping, satisfaction with kind of work, emotional exhaustion and turnover intention. The multivariate analyses of covariance indicated a signi cant effect for work status for the Canadian nurses (Pillai’s Trace F(11,399) 5 2.23, p , .05) but not for the Jordanian nurses (Pillai’s Trace F(11,132) 5 1.44, p 5 .16). However, the univariate analysis of variance indicated there was only one signi cant difference between the full-time and part-time Canadian nurses. Full-time Canadian nurses reported signi cantly higher levels of emotional exhaustion than did part-time Canadian nurses. To test for the effect of work status congruency, we ran two separate MANCOVA analyses for each sample with the perceived support and coping variables in one analysis and the outcome variables in the second analysis. The means, standard deviations and ANCOVA F-values for the Canadian sample are shown in Table 2. Although there was a trend for Canadian nurses who worked full time but who preferred to work part time (FT/PT) to report lower perceived support and to engage in less direct action coping compared to the other three groups, these differences were not statistically signi cant (Pillai’s Trace F(15,1323) 5 .80, p 5 .68). However, the MANCOVA results for the outcome variables indicated a signi cant effect for work Table 2 Means, standard deviations and ANCOVA F-values for the Canadian sample Measure

FT/FT M (SD) n 5 205

FT/PT M (SD) n 5 70

PT/FT M (SD) n 5 40

PT/PT F-value M (SD) n 5 131

Organizational support

2.49 (.71) 3.11 (.99) 3.74 (.73) 3.28 (.73) 3.02 (.50) 3.83 (.75) 2.76 (.81) 3.12 (.87) 2.62 (.78) 2.03 (.51) 2.31 (1.07)

2.36 (.68) 2.92 (.86) 3.60 (.76) 3.16 (.76) 3.07 (.45) 3.39 (.75) 2.34 (.80) 2.84 (.79) 2.27 (.73) 2.45 (.54) 2.76 (1.09)

2.58 (.73) 3.11 (.94) 3.82 (.85) 3.43 (.71) 2.99 (.53) 4.02 (.66) 2.86 (.84) 3.13 (.90) 2.54 (.88) 1.84 (.46) 2.13 (1.02)

2.54 (.72) 3.09 (.94) 3.72 (.69) 3.21 (.67) 3.05 (.45) 3.68 (.81) 2.69 (.81) 3.24 (.78) 2.61 (.68) 1.94 (.50) 2.20 (.83)

Supervisor support Co-worker support Direct action coping Avoidance/resignation Satisfaction with kind of work Satisfaction with amount of work Satisfaction with working conditions Satisfaction with career future Emotional exhaustion Turnover intention Notes * p , .05

** p ,

.01

*** p ,

.001

,

1.53 1.00 1.02

,

1.44 1.00 8.25*** 5.67*** 3.42** 3.81** 19.34*** 5.80***

48


status congruence (Pillai’s Trace F(18,1314) 5 4.23, p 5 .001). The univariate ANCOVA F-values indicated signi cant differences for the facet job satisfaction measures, emotional exhaustion and turnover intention. In each case, the FT/PT group differed signi cantly from the other three groups. Canadian nurses who were working full time but actually preferred to be working part time reported signi cantly lower satisfaction with the kind of work they were performing, the amount of work, their working conditions and their career future. They also experienced higher levels of emotional exhaustion and expressed a greater intention to leave the hospital. The means, standard deviations and ANCOVA F-values for the Jordanian sample are given in Table 3. The MANCOVA results for the perceived support and coping variables indicated no signi cant overall effect for work status congruence (Pillai’s Trace F(10,332) 5 1.55, p 5 .12), although there was a tendency for the FT/PT group to report lower organizational and co-worker support and to engage in less direct action coping than those nurses with a congruent work status. The MANCOVA results for the outcome variables indicated no signi cant overall effect for work status (Pillai’s Trace F(12,354) 5 1.00, p 5 .45). Although there was a trend for nurses in Jordan who were working full time but preferring part-time work to report lower satisfaction with various Table 3 Means, standard deviations and ANCOVA F-values for the Jordanian sample Measure

FT/FT M (SD) n 5 105

FT/PT M (SD) n 5 60

PT/PT M (SD) n 5 20

F-value

Organizational support

2.46 (.74) 3.26 (1.03) 3.40 (.82) 3.90 (.61) 2.89 (.60) 3.24 (.98) 2.65 (.85) 2.81 (1.11) 2.52 (1.00) 2.58 (.57) 3.06 (1.21)

2.28 (.68) 3.19 (.96) 3.35 (.87) 3.65 (.63) 2.81 (.58) 3.02 (1.04) 2.33 (.82) 2.57 (1.00) 2.42 (.88) 2.72 (.51) 3.27 (1.19)

2.76 (.58) 3.15 (1.15) 3.46 (1.15) 3.72 (.78) 2.98 (.63) 3.25 (.98) 2.75 (1.02) 3.28 (1.12) 2.69 (1.08) 2.67 (.70) 3.05 (1.25)

2.52

Supervisor support Co-worker support Direct action coping Avoidance/resignation Satisfaction with kind of work Satisfaction with amount of work Satisfaction with working conditions Satisfaction with career future Emotional exhaustion Turnover intention Notes * p , .05

** p ,

.01

*** p ,

.001

,

1.00 ,

1.00

,

3.67* 1.00 1.10 2.80

,

1.96 1.00

,

1.24 1.00


49

Table 4 Hierarchical regression results for satisfaction with kind of work and amount of work Satisfaction with kind of work Canadian Jordanian nurses nurses Time on unit Time in hospital Time as a nurse Age Marital status Number of children FT/PT work status PT/FT work status PT/PT work status R2 F change Organizational support Supervisor support Co-worker support R2 D R2 F change Direct action coping Avoidance/resignation R2 D R2 F change

2

.06 .05 .08 2 .07 .08 .02 2 .08 .03 2 .08 .05 2.16* .34*** .05 .19*** .28 .23 41.27*** .23*** 2 .07 .33 .05 14.02***

.02 .15 .20 .05 2 .25* 2 .22* 2 .07 2

2

2

.05 .16 3.15** .23** .12 .19* .30 .14 8.40*** .27*** 2 .04 .36 .06 5.90**

Satisfaction with amount of work Canadian Jordanian nurses nurses 2

.14* .05 .16 2 .08 .00 2 .05 2 .13** 2 .01 2 .05 .06 2.76** .35*** .14** .09* .28 .22 39.17*** .11* 2 .02 .29 .01 2.72

2 2 2 2 2 2 2

.04 .07 .21 .01 .09 .02 .01 2

.01 .11 2.01* .38*** .12 .20** .33 .22 13.81*** .16* 2 .03 .35 .02 2.15

Notes Beta coef cients are from the simultaneous regression with all variables entered. PT/FT work status was not included for the Jordanian sample because of small numbers. * p , .05 ** p , .01 *** p , .001

aspects of their work and working conditions, greater emotional exhaustion and higher turnover intention, these differences were not statistically signi cant. The results for the hierarchical regressions are shown in Tables 4, 5 and 6. For the Canadian sample, the predictor variables accounted for 33 per cent of the variance in satisfaction with kind of work, 29 per cent of the variance in satisfaction with amount of work, 26 per cent of the variance in satisfaction with working conditions, 39 per cent of the variance in satisfaction with career future, 36 per cent of the variance in emotional exhaustion and 25 per cent of the variance in turnover intention. For the Jordanian sample, the predictor variables accounted for 36 per cent of the variance in satisfaction with kind of work, 35 per cent of the variance in satisfaction with amount of work, 37 per cent of the variance in satisfaction with working conditions, 40 per cent of the variance in satisfaction with career future, 30 per cent of the variance in emotional exhaustion and 38 per cent of the variance in turnover intention. The most signi cant predictor for all of the outcome variables is perceived organizational support and this is true for both the Canadian and the Jordanian samples. Only a small number of the demographic variables continued to show a signi cant relationship with the outcome variables once the support and coping variables were added to the analyses.

50


Table 5 Hierarchical regression results for satisfaction with working conditions and career future Satisfaction with working conditions Canadian Jordanian nurses nurses Time on unit Time in hospital Time as a nurse Age Marital status Number of children FT/PT work status PT/FT work status PT/PT work status R2 F change Organizational support Supervisor support Co-worker support R2 D R2 F change Direct action coping Avoidance/resignation R2 D R2 F change

2

.07 .06 .27** 2 .11 .01 2 .04 2 .05 .00 .04 .06 2.62** .40*** .02 .09* .26 .20 33.91*** .08 2 .02 .26 .00 1.44 2

2

.02 .51* 2 .36 2 .07 .02 2 .01 .04 – 2 .02 .08 1.44 .47*** .04 .16* .32 .24 14.24*** .23** 2 .13 .37 .05 5.48**

Satisfaction with career future Canadian Jordanian nurses nurses 2

.02 .03 .02 2 .05 .09* .03 2 .07 2 .05 2 .03 .03 1.34 .54*** .10* .06 .39 .36 74.12*** .03 2 .02 .39 .00 .26

.09 .18 .12 2 .02 2 .05 2 .07 .01 – 2 .07 .10 1.84 .53*** .10 2 .06 .35 .25 16.05*** .18* 2 .16* .40 .05 4.59* 2


For the Canadian nurses, length of time employed as a nurse was signi cantly positively related to satisfaction with working conditions and signi cantly negatively associated with emotional exhaustion. For the Jordanian nurses, length of time employed in the hospital was signi cantly positively related to satisfaction with working conditions and marital status and number of children were signi cantly associated with satisfaction with kind of work. For both samples, co-worker support was a signi cant predictor of satisfaction with kind of work, satisfaction with amount of work and satisfaction with working conditions. Co-worker support was negatively related to emotional exhaustion and turnover intention for the Canadian sample but not for the Jordanian sample. Direct action coping was a signi cant predictor of satisfaction with kind of work and satisfaction with amount of work and emotional exhaustion for both samples. Direct action coping was also a signi cant predictor of satisfaction with career future and turnover intention for the Jordanian nurses. Avoidance/resignation coping was not a signi cant predictor for the Canadian nurses and only showed two signi cant relationships (with emotional exhaustion and turnover intention) for the Jordanian nurses.


51

Table 6 Hierarchical regression results for emotional exhaustion and turnover intention

Time on unit Time in hospital Time as a nurse Age Marital status Number of children FT/PT work status PT/FT work status PT/PT work status R2 F change Organizational support Supervisor support Co-worker support R2 D R2 F change Direct action coping Avoidance/resignation R2 D R2 F change

Emotional exhaustion Canadian Jordanian nurses nurses

Turnover intention Canadian Jordanian nurses nurses

.09 .06 2 .21** .06 2 .04 .06 .22*** 2 .06 2 .05 .13 6.46*** 2 .35*** 2 .08 2 .16*** .35 .22 44.08*** 2 .09* .08 .36 .01 3.39*

.11 .12 2 .09 .15* 2 .06 .03 .07 2 .01 .01 .04 1.89 2 .35*** 2 .08 2 .14** .24 .20 34.03*** 2 .07 .08 .25 .01 2.14

.10 .10 2 .05 2 .19 2 .04 2 .05 2 .01 – .17* .06 1.10 2 .53*** .18* 2 .03 .25 .19 10.25*** 2 .19* .18* .30 .05 4.58*

2

2

.07 .16 2 .16 .02 .12 .09 2 .01 – .08 .12 2.24* 2 .50*** 2 .08 2 .02 .35 .23 14.16*** 2 .19* .05 .38 .03 3.23*


Discussion Mangelsdorf and Smith (1990) suggested that nurses around the world may experience similar job demands and pressures. However, international research in nursing has been hampered by a lack of cross-cultural studies (Meleis, 1985). In the present study, the nurses from Jordan were signi cantly younger, less likely to be married or to have children, and more likely to be working full time than the nurses from Canada. These differences in demographic characteristics are probably a re ection of differences in culture. In the Jordanian culture, nursing is one of the few professions open to women. However, if women marry, and especially if they have children, they are expected to take on the traditional role of women in Jordanian society – that of wife and mother – and to withdraw from the work-force (AbuGharbieh and Suliman, 1992). On the other hand, until recently hospitals in Canada had experienced a shortage of nursing staff and had initiated a number of programmes, such as increased use of part-time employment and compressed work weeks, to make it easier for nurses to balance their work and family responsibilities and thus to remain in the work-force. The demographic differences between the two samples may be a contributing factor to the signi cant differences observed between the Canadian and Jordanian nurses on the coping and outcome variables. Compared to the Canadian nurses, nurses in Jordan were

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signi cantly more likely to engage in direct action coping and less likely to resort to avoidance/resignation, were less satis ed with the kind of work they were performing, the amount of work and their working conditions. They also reported signi cantly higher levels of emotional exhaustion and a greater intention to leave the hospital. In addition to the differences in demographics, another factor that probably contributed to these differences is the fact that nurses in Canada, even part-time nurses, are unionized. Except for emotional exhaustion for the Canadian nurses, there were no signi cant differences between the full-time and part-time nurses in either country suggesting that full-time and part-time nurses in both Canada and Jordan perceive similar levels of support, engage in similar coping strategies, experience similar levels of satisfaction with various aspects of their jobs and have the same degree of turnover intention. However, a somewhat different picture emerged when we examined congruency of work status, especially for the Canadian nurses. There were still no signi cant differences among the work status groups for the support and coping variables. However, there were signi cant differences for the Canadian nurses for all of the outcome variables. Nurses who were working full time but who actually preferred to work part time reported greater dissatisfaction with the various aspects of their jobs, experienced higher levels of emotional exhaustion and were more likely to be thinking of leaving the hospital than nurses with a congruent work status. There was a similar trend for the Jordanian nurses, although the differences between the congruent and incongruent groups were not signi cant. The lack of statistical signi cance may be due in part to the smaller numbers of nurses in each of the work status categories in the Jordanian sample. These results indicate that congruence between actual and desired work status, rather than employment status alone, needs to be considered in studies comparing full-time and part-time workers. Failure to differentiate full-time and parttime work status into those nurses whose work status was congruent with their preferences and those nurses whose work status was incongruent with their preferences would conceal the fact that Canadian nurses with an incongruent work status (the FT/PT group) differed signi cantly from the other three groups on the outcome variables. These ndings also support White’s (1992) contention that the desire to move to parttime employment is a form of resistance to the frustrations and stress that nurses experience in their jobs. The theoretical framework underlying this study was Lazarus and Folkman’s stress model in which coping resources and coping strategies mediate the effect of a stressful situation on attitudinal and behavioural outcomes. The hierarchical regression results indicated that the perceived support variables accounted for a signi cant increase in the variance of all the outcome variables. What is noteworthy is that perceived organizational support was by far the most important predictor of facet job satisfaction, emotional exhaustion and turnover intention for nurses in both Canada and Jordan. Nurses who perceived higher levels of support from their hospital reported greater satisfaction with the various aspects of their jobs, experienced lower levels of emotional exhaustion and were less likely to be thinking of leaving the hospital. But, we also found that nurses in both Canada and Jordan in general reported relatively low levels of perceived support from their hospitals. Nurses in both countries felt that their hospital was not committed to them and did not value their contribution to it. The means for perceived organizational support were almost identical across the two countries. The nursing profession in both countries has traditionally been dominated by women and they occupy a relatively powerless position within the hospital hierarchy, especially


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when compared to physicians. Moreover, their work is largely considered menial (AbuGharbieh and Suliman, 1992; White, 1992). Clearly, hospital administrators in both countries should take steps to increase the perceived organizational support of their nursing staff given the important role that these front-line employees play in the quality of health-care delivery. Co-worker support was a more signi cant predictor of the outcome variables than supervisor support. The co-worker support scale assessed how much co-workers go out of their way to make the person’s work life easier, can be relied upon when things get tough at work and are willing to listen to the person’s personal problems, and how comfortable the person is about discussing problems with her co-workers. Nurses in both countries who perceived higher co-worker support reported greater satisfaction with the kind of work and the amount of work they were performing and greater satisfaction with their working conditions. An interesting nding was that co-worker support was associated with lower emotional exhaustion and lower turnover intention in the Canadian sample but not in the Jordanian sample. 1 Although the Canadian and Jordanian nurses reported similar levels of perceived organizational and supervisor support, there was a signi cant difference between the two groups for perceived coworker support. Jordanian nurses reported signi cantly lower co-worker support than Canadian nurses. These results were surprising given that Jordan has a much more collectivistic culture than Canada. In a national rating of individualism, Triandis (see Diener et al., 1995) rated Jordan as 3 (with 1 being the most collectivistic) and Canada as 9 (with 10 being the most individualistic). One would therefore expect greater coworker support among members of a collectivistic nation compared to members of a more individualistic nation. A possible explanation may lie in the differences across the two countries in the length of time the nurses had worked on their unit. The Canadian nurses had worked an average of seven years on their unit compared to an average of three years for the Jordanian nurses. Moreover, the Canadian nurses had worked an average of twelve years for their respective hospitals whereas the Jordanian nurses been employed in their respective hospitals an average of four years. The longer length of time in the unit and at the hospital provided the Canadian nurses the opportunity to establish long-term relationships with their co-workers and this probably accounts for the differences in perceived co-worker support between the Canadian and Jordanian nurses. When added to the regression equation, the coping variables accounted for a smaller amount of the variance in the outcome variables than did the support variables. For both Canadian and Jordanian nurses, direct action coping was a signi cant predictor of satisfaction with kind of work, satisfaction with amount of work and emotional exhaustion. Nurses who coped by working faster and more ef ciently and longer, harder hours reported greater satisfaction with the kind of work and the amount of work they were performing. They were also more likely to report lower emotional exhaustion. Because of the cross-sectional nature of this study, it is not possible to determine the causality of these relationships. For example, it may be that nurses who are more satis ed with their work and who have less emotional exhaustion are more willing and able to cope by working longer, harder hours. For the Jordanian nurses, direct action coping was a signi cant predictor of satisfaction with working conditions and career future as well as turnover intention. Jordanian nurses who engaged in direct action coping reported signi cantly higher satisfaction with their working conditions, greater satisfaction with their career future and lower turnover intention. These results re ect the fact that the Jordanian nurses were much more likely to engage in direct

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Table 7 Summary of hypotheses and results Hypothesis

Results

H1: Full-time nurses will perceive signi cantly greater support than parttime nurses.

Not supported for either the Canadian or the Jordanian nurses. Also not supported when work status congruency is taken into account.

H2: Full-time nurses will be signi cantly more likely to engage in direct action coping than part-time nurses whereas part-time nurses will be signi cantly more likely to resort to avoidance/resignation coping strategies than full-time nurses.

Not supported for either the Canadian or the Jordanian nurses. Also not supported when work status congruency is taken into account although, for the Jordanian sample, FT/FT nurses were more likely to use direct action coping than FT/PT and PT/PT nurses.

H3: Full-time nurses will report signi cantly higher levels of facet job satisfaction and lower levels of emotional exhaustion and turnover intention than part-time nurses.

Weak support for the Canadian sample (only for emotional exhaustion); not supported for the Jordanian sample. Work status congruency has a signi cant effect for the Canadian nurses but not for the Jordanian nurses. Canadian FT/PT nurses reported signi cantly lower facet job satisfaction and higher levels of emotional exhaustion and turnover intention than the other three groups.

action coping than the Canadian nurses. This may partially be due to the fact that the Canadian nurses are unionized and changing the way work is performed (working more ef ciently and faster) and working longer hours may not be sanctioned by the union. Avoidance/resignation coping was not a signi cant predictor for the Canadian sample and was only a signi cant predictor for two of the outcome variables for the Jordanian sample. Jordanian nurses who resorted to avoidance/resignation coping reported signi cantly greater dissatisfaction with their career future and higher emotional exhaustion than Jordanian nurses who did not engage in avoidance/resignation coping. The weaker results for avoidance/resignation coping may re ect the low reliability of this scale, especially in the Canadian sample. The ndings suggest that future studies need to go beyond a simple comparison of full-time and part-time employees and to examine differences within the full-time and part-time groups. In other words, full-time and part-time employees should not be treated as homogeneous groups. We differentiated the full-time and part-time nurses on the basis of work status congruency. However, as Barling and Gallagher (1996) point out, part-time employees can be differentiated on a number of factors including permanent versus temporary work schedule and whether or not the person is working part time voluntarily or involuntarily (unable to obtain full-time employment). Nurses working part time tend to have more permanent part-time jobs and are provided with the same treatment as full-time nurses (Hackett and Bycio, 1993). They represent what Kahne (1992) has termed ‘new concept’ part-time employees. This type of part-time employee may be more similar to a full-time employee than the more contingent part-


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time worker who has low earnings, few or no bene ts and little job security. One of the major challenges in conducting research on subgroups within full-time and part-time employees is obtaining large enough numbers within each of the categories to allow for meaningful comparisons. This is especially a problem for subgroup comparisons of part-time workers because of the smaller number of part-time workers in general. According to Wedderburn (1996), a large number of existing full-time workers actually desire a part-time job and this trend is expected to continue in the future. Greater attention needs to be paid to this group of workers both by researchers and by management. There is a paucity of research on full-time workers who would prefer part-time employment. Compared to people who are working part time but prefer fulltime employment, people who are working full time but prefer part-time employment are rarely mentioned either in the academic or the practitioner literature. Our results indicated that it was the full-time nurses who would actually have preferred to be working part time who had lower job satisfaction, higher emotional exhaustion and greater intention to leave. These results, along with the predicted increase in the number of workers in this category, suggest the need to conduct more research on this group. The demographic differences between the Canadian and Jordanian nurses make it dif cult to determine if the differences found in the present study were due to differences in demographic characteristics or related to differences in culture between the two nations. In future research, focusing upon groups that are similar in such characteristics as age and organizational tenure would control for the in uence of individual characteristics and provide a clearer picture of the in uence of culture. One of the most noteworthy ndings of this study was the importance of perceived organizational support as a predictor of positive attitudes for nurses in both countries. More research is needed on perceived organizational support. Does organizational support have a similar degree of importance for other occupational groups besides the nursing profession? Is perceived organizational support as important a predictor for nurses in other countries? What factors in uence perceived organization support? Do the same factors in uence perceived organizational support across countries? The study of part-time workers is important because part-time work is the most rapidly expanding new form of employment (Duffy and Pupo, 1992) and internationally women predominate in the part-time labour force. The present study provides one of the few studies to compare full-time and part-time employees in a female-dominated profession in two quite divergent countries. The nursing profession lends itself to the study of part-time employment because it is a profession that exists throughout the world, the duties of nurses are fairly similar across nations and many nurses work on a part-time basis. It is also well documented that the nursing profession in general is highly stressful. This suggests that a stress model provides an appropriate theoretical framework for the study of part-time employment in the nursing profession. However, because of the focus on the nursing profession, the ndings of this study may be speci c to the nursing profession and may not generalize to other part-time employees. Marjorie Armstrong-Stassen, Sheila J. Cameron and Martha E. Horsburgh University of Windsor Ontario Rowaida Al-Ma’aitah Jordan University of Science and Technology

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Acknowledgements This study was supported in part by grants from the Ontario Ministry of Health. A previous version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management, August 1995, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Note 1 The authors wish to thank an anonymous reviewer for pointing out this difference .

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