Empowerment, job satisfaction and organizational commitment: a comparative analysis of nurses working in Malaysia and England.
OBJECTIVE
To examine the relationships between nurses' empowerment, job satisfaction and organizational commitment in culturally and developmentally different societies.


BACKGROUND
Employment and retention of sufficient and well-committed nursing staff are essential for providing safe and effective health care. In light of this, nursing leaders have been searching for ways to re-engineer the healthcare system particularly by providing an environment that is conducive to staff empowerment, job satisfaction and commitment.


METHODS
This is a descriptive correlational survey of 556 registered nurses (RNs) in two teaching hospitals in England and Malaysia.


RESULTS
Although the Malaysian nurses felt more empowered and committed to their organization, the English nurses were more satisfied with their job.


CONCLUSIONS
The differences between these two groups of nurses show that empowerment does not generate the same results in all countries, and reflects empirical evidence from most cross cultural studies on empowerment.


CONCLUSIONS
Nursing management should always take into consideration cultural differences in empowerment, job satisfaction and commitment of nursing staff while formulating staff policies.
Ahmad
Nora
N
School of Nursing and Allied Health Sciences, Open University of Malaysia, 50480 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. nora_ahmad@oum.edu.my
Oranye
Nelson Ositadimma
NO
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D004739:England; D005260:Female; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006784:Hospitals, Teaching / Q000458:organization & administration; D006801:Humans; D007588:Job Satisfaction; D007857:Leadership; D008296:Malaysia; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009042:Motivation; D009718:Nurse Administrators; D009726:Nurses / Q000523:psychology*; D009745:Nursing, Supervisory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015279:Organizational Culture; D011209:Power, Psychological; D012044:Regression Analysis; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D055815:Young Adult