Job Involvement and Job Satisfaction of S O U Th X African Nurses Compared ' with Other Professions Job Satisfaction

There were 114 nurses in the final sample and 1677members o f other professions. Differen­ ces among professions were tested fo r significance using one-way analyses o f variance and Bonferroni ranges tests. South African Nurses were shown to have extremely low job satisfaction relative to Ameri­ can nurses and to other professional groups in South-Africa. By contrast their job involve­ ment was moderately high. The implications o f these findings for the medical profession as a whole and for nurses in particular are discussed. The fear is expressed that wide spread dissatisfaction may lead to fewer people entering the profession and highly trained people leaving. The present study attempts to provide some perspective on the response of nurses to their working environment. Two work outcomes that are powerful indicators of the quality of work life and are also predictors of staff turn­ over, namely job satisfaction and job involve­ ment, were examined. Before the research methodology and results are presented, the job satisfaction and job in­ volvement constructs will be defined briefly. Some of the effects of satisfaction and invol­ vement on personal and organisational life will also be outlined. The definition of job satisfaction suggested by Locke was adopted for the present study. Locke defines job satisfaction as "a pleasur­ able or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one's job or job experiences" (Locke, 1983). Two aspects of this definition require amplification. Firstly, job satisfaction is defined as an emotion. Pleasure and displea­ sure are among the most basic of emotions and reflect an unconscious appraisal of the beneficial or harmful relationship of some as­ pects of reality upon oneself (Locke, 1969). The second conspicuous aspect of the defini­ tion is that it offers no specific prescription of just what facets of the job or job experiences may be appraised as satisfying or dissatis­ fying. The truth seems to be that almost any job-related event, condition or agent (i.e. co­ workers, supervisors and so on) may be evalu­ ated positively or negatively in terms of their potentially beneficial or harmful impact. Job satisfaction then is a cumulative reaction to an extremely broad array of job facets. Job facets may be categorized as either extrin­ sic or intrinsic. The extrinsic facets include such aspects of the context in which the work is performed as pay, work hours and relation­ ships with co-workers and managers. The in­ trinsic …


Die resultatedui daarop dat SuidAfrikaanse verpleegsters se werksbetrokkenheid relatief hoog is. Hul werksbevrediging wás egtér uiters laag. Die implikasies van hierdie bevindinge vir die mediese professie en veral vir verpleegsters word bespreek. s u m m a r y
The study was designed primarily to compare the work outcomes ofjob satisfaction and job involvement o f South African nurses with those o f members o f 13 other professional groups in South Africa and with American nurses where data was available.Secondary aims in cluded identifying areas where job satisfaction was particularly low and demonstrating the relative independence o f the job involvement and job satisfaction constructs.
A questionnaire incorporating the Kanungo Job Involvement Scale and the Short Form o f the Minnesota Job Satisfaction Questionnaire was mailed to random samples o f people be tween the ages o f 29 and 41 drawn from 14 professional registers.
There were 114 nurses in the final sample and 1677members o f other professions.Differen ces among professions were tested fo r significance using one-way analyses o f variance and Bonferroni ranges tests.
South African Nurses were shown to have extremely low job satisfaction relative to Ameri can nurses and to other professional groups in South-Africa.By contrast their job involve ment was moderately high.The implications o f these findings for the medical profession as a whole and for nurses in particular are discussed.The fear is expressed that wide spread dissatisfaction may lead to fewer people entering the profession and highly trained people leaving.
The present study attempts to provide some perspective on the response of nurses to their working environment.Two work outcomes that are powerful indicators of the quality of work life and are also predictors of staff turn over, namely job satisfaction and job involve ment, were examined.
Before the research methodology and results are presented, the job satisfaction and job in volvement constructs will be defined briefly.Some of the effects of satisfaction and invol vement on personal and organisational life will also be outlined.

JOB SATISFACTION
The definition of job satisfaction suggested by Locke was adopted for the present study.Locke defines job satisfaction as "a pleasur able or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one's job or job experiences" (Locke, 1983).Two aspects of this definition require amplification.Firstly, job satisfaction is defined as an emotion.Pleasure and displea sure are among the most basic of emotions and reflect an unconscious appraisal of the beneficial or harmful relationship of some as pects of reality upon oneself (Locke, 1969).
The second conspicuous aspect of the defini tion is that it offers no specific prescription of just what facets of the job or job experiences may be appraised as satisfying or dissatis fying.The truth seems to be that almost any job-related event, condition or agent (i.e.co workers, supervisors and so on) may be evalu ated positively or negatively in terms of their potentially beneficial or harmful impact.Job satisfaction then is a cumulative reaction to an extremely broad array of job facets.
Job facets may be categorized as either extrin sic or intrinsic.The extrinsic facets include such aspects of the context in which the work is performed as pay, work hours and relation ships with co-workers and managers.The in trinsic facets concern the content of the work performed, whether it is interesting, varied, a source of identity and whether it exercises one's skills.Generally, the amount of auton omy one's job provides would be regarded as an intrinsic facet, but for the purposes of this study autonomy was measured separately.
The consequences of job satisfaction (or a lack thereof) have been the subject of inten sive research.Returning to Locke's (1983) de finition of satisfaction as an emotional response, the most obvious behavioural conse quence of dissatisfaction would be avoidance, hence staff turnover or absenteeism.A great deal of empirical research has provided gener ally consistent support for this proposition (Locke, 1983;Mitchell, 1979;O 'Reilly III & Caldwell, 1980).Results frpm these studies in dicate that job satisfaction may account for up to 16 percent of the variance in absenteeism and turnover.
Job satisfaction has been related to a number of variables that might be classified as quality of life variables, including general life satis faction, physical health and longevity, and mental health.Mitchell (1979), Locke (1983) and Khaleque and Rahman (1987) cite 10 in dependent studies showing job satisfaction and life satisfaction to be correlated.Khaleque and Rahman's (1987) own study provides further evidence.Most of these studies however, are correlational and do not imply causality.Locke (1983) suggests that emotional generalization or "spillover" might in fact work in both directions so that work at titudes for example may affect attitudes to one's family and vice versa.
Studies relating satisfaction to physical and mental health and to longevity, have consist ently yielded positive correlations (Khaleque & Rahman, 1987;Locke, 1983).In a study by Palmore (cited in Locke, 1983) work satisfac tion proved an even stronger predictor of lon gevity (r = ,26, N = 288) than such variables as physical exercise and tobacco use.

JOB INVOLVEMENT
The definition and measurement of job invol vement has been the subject of a great deal of controversy.A review of the literature, how ever, suggested that Kanungo (1982), drawing on the seminal work of Lodahl and Kejner (1965), had produced the most consistent de finition and measurement.The definition of job involvement, used by Kanungo and adopted for the present study, was "a psycho logical identification with one's work".
Numerous possible antecedents and/or deter minants of job involvement have been exam ined, but the construct remains largely unexplained.Job involvement seems to be determined by individuals' characteristics (that is that some people have a predisposition to be more involved in their jobs whatever the circumstances) (Lorence& Mortimer, 1985;Mannhein & Dubin, 1986;Moch, 1980;Mor row, 1983;Rabinowitz & Hall, 1977).Situ ational variables shown to be related to job involvement include challenging work (Hall, Goodale, Rabinowitz & Morgan, 1978), a con fident and trusting leader, participation in deci sion making, social contact and job satisfaction (Rabinowitz & Hall, 1977), free dom of choice in career decisions (O 'Reilly III & Caldwell, 1980), autonomy (Lorence & Mortimer, 1985) and pressure for quality work (Lawler & Hall, 1970).Furthermore an interaction between individual differences and situational characteristics has been shown to influence job involvement (Kanungo, 1982).Rabinowitz and Hall (1977) suggest that job involvement is a "feedback variable", simulta neously a cause and an effect of job beha viour.Research into job involvement as a cause has focused primarily on job perfor mance, employee turnover and absenteeism as dependent variables.
Numerous studies investigating a possible re lationship between job involvement and per formance have produced disappointing results.However, the work of Vroom (1962), Hall and Lawler (1970) and Rabinowitz (1985) does indicate at least a weak correla tion between job involvement and job perfor mance.Possibly the relationship is unclear becauce performance goals may not be clear within the control and ability of employee, or short-term enough to show a direct correlation between involvement and performance.
In line with intuitive thinking, high job invol vement has been associated with low staff turnover and low absenteeism.There are dis crepancies in the degree of prediction various studies achieve, ranging from as much as 16 percent of the variance in staff turnover to as little as two percent (Blau & Boal, 1987).Job involvement seems to predict turnover more consistently than absenteeism and the fre quence of absences rather than the duration (Farris, 1971;Seigel & Ruh, 1973).
The present study was designed to survey and compare the satisfaction and involvement ex perienced by nurses with that of members of other professions.In an attempt to isolate more specific areas of concern, comparisons were also made across three components of job satisfaction, i.e. extrinsic satisfaction, in trinsic satisfaction and a measure of satisfac tion worth the amount of autonomy the job allows dubbed autonomic satisfaction.Fur thermore, the general job satisfaction of nur ses was compared to American norms for that profession.

METHOD
For a detailed description of the research methodology employed in this survey, readers are referred to Boshoff, Kaplan, Schutte and Kellerman (1989).Only a brief synopsis of the methodology will be presented here.

SAMPLE
Random samples of approximately 300 people between the ages of 29 and 41 years were drawn from the professional registers of each of 14 professions (see Table I).Each sub ject was sent a questionnaire and a postage paid return-envelope in either English or Afri kaans if a preference could be determined from the register.Follow up letters and an offer of personal feedback on the results of the survey were used in an attempt to ensure a good return rate.In the event, out of 4084 questionnaires mailed initially, 1791 usuable questionnaires were returned -a response rate close on 44%.A break down of samples by profession, age, sex and language is given in Table I.

MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
English and Afrikaans versions of the measur ing instruments were prepared using a translation-retranslation procedure to ensure consistency.They were also subjected to a rig orous psychometric validation before being used in further analyses.The translation and validation procedures are described in detail in Boshoff, Kaplan, Schutte and Kellerman (1989).
Job satisfaction was measured using the Short Form of the Minnesota Satisfaction Question naire (1967).The instrument consists of 20 items measuring satisfaction with job facets such as ability utilization, advancement, com pensation and responsibility.II.Statistical analyses as part of the study reported here were based on the scores on the factor scales derived from the factor analyses described above.
Overall differences between the professional groups on each of the variables under study were tested for significance using one-way analyses of variance, and significant differen ces were further isolated using the Bonferroni Ranges Test.

RESULTS
The mean of general satisfaction scores for the sample of South African nurses was com pared with normative data for American com parison groups (Nunnally, 1978).The results of the comparisons are reflected in Table III.These results indicate that 70% of full-time, 68% of part-time and 75% of supervisory nur ses in the USA, on whom the instrument was standardized, have higher job satisfaction than the average South African nurse.South Afri can nurses therefore experience substantially less job satisfaction than their American counterparts.
The results of the one-way analyses of vari ance are summarized in Tables IV through  VIII.
The results reflected in Table IV show nurses to have the numerically lowest overall satis faction of all the professions sampled and to have significantly lower overall satisfaction than 10 out of 13 professional groups.
Similarly on the factors included in the over all satisfaction measure -extrinsic satisfac tion, intrinsic satisfaction and autonomic satisfaction -nurses scored particularly low as reflected in Tables V, VI and VIII respective ly-Nurses had the lowest scores numerically on the autonomic and extrinsic job satisfaction factors.They also returned extremely low scores on the intrinsic job satisfaction scale.Given the effect of the "emotional spillover" discussed earlier, it is possible that any intrin sic satisfaction in the job is depressed by the extremely low level of extrinsic and auton omic satisfaction.
Of particular concern is the fact that nurses score significantly lower, statistically, than any other profession on the autonomic satis faction measure, as reflected in Table VII (over page).
In contrast to their low satisfaction, nurses have moderately high job involvement (See Table VIII over page).It is possible that high involvement in a job exacerbates the effect of working conditions on job satisfaction.It may be postulated that where one is more involved in a job, relatively small changes in occupa tional conditions may have a more pervasive influence resulting in the experience of ex tremes of satisfaction or dissatisfaction.This may be the case with nurses in South Africa at present.

CONCLUSIONS
The findings reported in this paper may be summarized as follows: In the case of general job satisfaction the sample of South African nurses scored substantially lower than their American counterparts.Furthermore, in com parison with samples of 13 other South Afri can professional groups, South African nurses had the lowest average numerically and scored statistically lower than 10 of the groups at the 95% confidence level.Results for each of the satisfaction subscales were similarly disturbing -with the findings with re gard to Autonomic and Extrinsic factors par-  The implications of these findings are alarm ing for nurses themselves and for the medical profession as a whole.If the present low level of satisfaction is prolonged, there is evidence that it may prove physically and mentally de bilitating for the nurses themselves, particular ly in light of their relatively intense involvement in their work (Locke, 1983;Khaleque & Rahman, 1987).While the low job satisfaction is unlikely to have a marked effect on the job performance of nurses (Locke, 1983), it is likely to be felt in terms of increasing numbers leaving the profession, given the dear correlation between dissatisfac tion and staff turnover (Locke, 1983;Mit chell, 1979;O'Reilly III & Caldwell, 1980).It is also probable that such widespread dissatis faction will result in fewer entrants to the pro fession and consequent shortages of nurses would have direct implications for the quality of medical care that can be offered in the longer term.If the scenario that has been sketched is to be avoided, specific causal agents, circumstances and events at the root of nurses' dissatisfaction need to be identified and re-dressed as a matter of urgency.

TABLE VIII . Summary of tha Ona-way Analysis of Varlanca and Bonfarronl ranges tast for Dapandant Variabla Job Involvamant
It is d ear that the pri mary causes of nurses' dissatisfaction stem from factors extrinsic to the work itself, for example pay, work hours and job autonomy As far as job involvement was concerned, nur ses scored moderately high in comparison to other South African professional groups.It is likely that they would be even more involved if they were more satisfied.