HEAD NURSE LEADERSHIP BEHAVIOR, JOB SATISFACTION AND QUALITY OF NURSING CARE: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY (ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR, THEORY).
Contributors: University of Rochester.
Published: 1985
Number of pages: 224
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: The relationships between and among leadership behaviors of head nurses, the job satisfaction of staff nurses, and the quality of nursing care rendered by the staff on selected nursing units are examined in this descriptive study. The unit of observation and analysis is the patient care unit.

Instruments selected have established validity and reliability for the variables being tested. They included the Leadership Behavior Description Questionnaire (LBDQ), the Job Descriptive Index (JDI), and the Rush-Medicus Quality Monitoring Methodology. Data were used to construct eight case studies which were examined for relationships and for their fit with some of the theoretical formulations of the Path-Goal Theory of Leadership.

Findings from this study led to the conclusion that job satisfaction is an intervening variable between leader behavior and the quality of work performance of the group. Several contextual factors which affected the relationships between the study variables were the presence of or potential for intragroup conflict, work group orientation toward meeting task goals or social goals, and workload.

Although this study was not designed to test hypotheses derived from Robert House's Path-Goal Theory, the findings supported many of the formulations and lead to the suggestion for further study using this theoretical framework with a nursing population.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-01, Section: B, page: 0133.

Thesis (ED.D.)--THE UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER, 1985.

School code: 0188.