JOB SATISFACTION AND DISSATISFACTION AMONG HOSPITAL NURSING SUPERVISORS .THE APPLICABILITY OF HERZBERG??S THEORY

This descriptive study attempted to identify factors which nursing supervisors in general hospitals describe as consistently leading to job satisfaction and dissatisfaction and to assess the validity of Herzberg's motivation-hygiene theory for this population.

Abstract

This descriptive study attempted to identify factors which nursing supervisors in general hospitals describe as consistently leading to job satisfaction and dissatisfaction and to assess the validity of Herzberg's motivation-hygiene theory for this population. A semistructured interview, adapted from Herzberg, was used to collect the data. Factors most often mentioned as leading to either job satisfaction or job dissatisfaction (in descending order of frequency) were: Work Itself, Achievement, Hospital Policy and Administration, Recognition, Working Conditions, Supervision-Technical, Interpersonal Relations, Responsibility, and Possibility for Growth. Three motivators—Work Itself, Possibility for Growth, and Recognition—appeared significantly more often in stories of satisfaction; Supervision-Technical, a hygiene, was found significantly more often in dissatisfying accounts (p < .03 for all four factors). For these four factors, the validity of the motivation-hygiene theory appears to be upheld.