ANALYSIS OF A TRANSCULTURAL INNOVATION: THE SOCIALIZATION OF FILIPINO GRADUATE NURSES INTO AN ACUTE HEALTH CARE ORGANIZATION IN THE UNITED STATES.
Contributors: University of Massachusetts (System)
Published: 1992
Number of pages: 275
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Health Sciences, Health Care Management.; Education, Bilingual and Multicultural.
Description: Extreme professional nurse shortage exerts stress upon the conventional recruitment and retention efforts of administrators in health care institutions, causing administrators to seek alternative solutions, including the recruitment and hiring of foreign nurses. The productivity of the foreign nurse alternative, as evidenced by pass rates on registered nurse licensure examination and by retention of the recruited nurses at sponsoring institutions is low, raising questions about factors that contribute to lack of success and promulgate improvement of foreign nurse recruitment and orientation initiatives.

This study describes and analyzes an attempt to assimilate Filipino nurses at a medical center in western Massachusetts of just under 1000 client beds during an 18% professional nurse position vacancy crisis, occurring in the mid 1980's. The initiative, involving the recruitment and socialization of a group of 37 graduate nurses from the Philippines to fill staff nurse position vacancies on a variety of clinical service units, is summarized in a case description. This study identifies significant factors to be considered by administrators who have responsibility for the planning and implementation of similar initiatives.

The literature review relates cultural information in two areas necessary to understand the transcultural socialization of a Filipino nurse, the pre professional socialization and the professional socialization contexts. The literature review of the professional socialization area discusses important contextual factors in Filipino nurse employment, nursing practice and nursing education.

The Wolf-Welsh Linkage Methodology and the Wolf Knowledge Diffusion/Utilization Inventory provided the framework for the study. The seven interrelated parts of the Methodology provided the basis for data collection and ex post facto analysis of the case data.

Data sources included the researcher's own participant observations, available medical center documents, and interviewed persons. Periodicals and external reports supplemented these data.

The analysis clarified key characteristics of the Filipino nurse socialization and related linkage activities that might have contributed to greater success in the medical center case. Nineteen recommendations for successful linkage in future foreign nurse initiatives comprise the concluding chapter of the study.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-09, Section: B, page: 4589.

Thesis (ED.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS, 1992.

School code: 0118.