Job Satisfaction as a Moderator of the Safety Leadership-Safety Performance Relationship in Nurses
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Date
2023-06-05
Department
University of Baltimore. Yale Gordon College of Arts and Sciences.
Program
University of Baltimore. Master of Science in Applied Psychology: Industrial and Organizational Psychology
Citation of Original Publication
Rights
Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 United States
This item may be protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. It is made available by The University of Baltimore for non-commercial research and educational purposes.
This item may be protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. It is made available by The University of Baltimore for non-commercial research and educational purposes.
Abstract
Despite organizations prioritizing safety, workplace accidents and injuries continue to
occur. Thus, safety research has evaluated factors that influence employees’ workplace
safety behaviors. The objective of this study was to examine job satisfaction as a
moderator of the relationship between safety leadership and safety performance. The
current study predicted that job satisfaction would strengthen the relationships between
transformational leadership and safety performance but weaken the relationships between
passive leadership and safety performance. This study dispersed surveys to 134 direct
care nurses across the United States. Job satisfaction did not moderate any of the
transformational safety leadership-safety performance relationships nor the passive safety
leadership-safety performance and passive safety leadership-safety participation
relationships. Interestingly, this study found that job satisfaction significantly weakened
the relationship between passive safety leadership and safety compliance but only when
job satisfaction was low. This suggested that significantly fewer safety compliance
behaviors occurred when unsatisfied nurses had a leader who engaged in passive
leadership behaviors. Because recent surveys have found that nurses’ job satisfaction has
been declining, in combination with being required to complete more complex formal
safety procedures since the outbreak of COVID-19, this finding is especially important
for healthcare organizations as it places them at greater risk of poor retention rates, higher
turnover, and reduced financial stability. This paper recommends that healthcare
organizations target employee engagement in conjunction with leadership development
initiatives to further enhance their impact on the organization.