WORKING WOMAN, THE WORK ORGANIZATION AND NEEDED CHANGE: A FOCUS ON NURSING.
Contributors: Union for Experimenting Colleges and Universities (U.S.)
Published: 1989
Number of pages: 183
Subjects: Business Administration, Management.; Psychology, Industrial.; Psychology, Social.; Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: This research study was designed to take a realistic look at the effects of working on women, and how work organizations respond to the needs and desires of this segment of the work force. Emanating from my personal experiences and struggles as a working mother, this study was intended to point to organizational policies and practices that deny individuality and that largely ignore employee needs. My interests focused on how best work organizations could review and restructure the work environment to adapt to the needs of a large segment of the work force, the working women. To pursue this interest, I chose to look at a work organization whose work force: (1) was predominantly female, (2) had a record of high employee turnover, and (3) was requiring a change in policies in order to retain employees. The organization that fit those characteristics was a hospital. The work force that fit my profile was the nursing staff of the hospital.

20 registered nurses were interviewed, representing hospitals from numerous areas of the United States. All of the nurses had left the hospital within the last five years to pursue careers in other areas of health care. In order to identify those factors in the hospital work environment that contributed to these 20 nurses leaving, I gathered my data directly from the nurses through interviews. I felt that this insight might facilitate the development of strategic plans for organizational development on the part of the hospital in order to retain the registered nurse.

The 20 nurses represented a diversity of hospital sizes, types, and locations. From these 20 interviews, I was able to identify some major contributions to the phenomenon of the nursing crisis. This research also pointed to similar ills in the work place that have led to increased numbers of women entrepreneurs, and self-employment in record numbers among women. The critical component has become the creation of a work environment which will accommodate personal and professional priorities.

This research study was designed to create a working model from which additional research can be done in order to: (1) look at the nursing crisis from the hospital's perspective, and (2) develop change processes for hospitals to adopt in order to correct deficiencies in practices which lead to dissatisfaction among the work force.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 50-05, Section: A, page: 1369.

Thesis (PH.D.)--THE UNION FOR EXPERIMENTING COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES, 1989.

School code: 0557.