TITLE:
Perception gaps for recognition behavior between staff nurses and their managers
AUTHORS:
Chiharu Miyata, Hidenori Arai, Sawako Suga
KEYWORDS:
Recognition Behavior; Nurse Manager; Staff Nurses
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Nursing,
Vol.3 No.7,
November
15,
2013
ABSTRACT: Nurse
managers play a critical role in improving the work environment. Important
leadership characteristics for nurse managers include visibility, accessibility,
communication, recognition, and support. The nurse manager’s recognition behaviors
strongly influence the job satisfaction of staff nurses. In our previous study,
we investigated how staff nurses perceived the nurse manager’s recognition
behaviors and revealed that there was a divergence in practical approaches to
these behaviors between the nurse manager and the staff. We assume that one
factor causing this divergence could be perception gaps between the nurse
manager and the staff. The aim of this study, therefore, was to uncover what
types of perception gaps exist between the nurse manager and staff nurses and
whether the background of staff nurses, such as years of experience or academic
background, could affect the staff nurses’ perceptions. This quantitative,
cross-sectional study involved 10 hospitals in Japan. A total of 1425 nurses
completed the questionnaire. The results showed that staff nurses considered
“Respect job schedule preferences” to be the most important of the recognition
behaviors. In contrast, nurse managers gave “Nurse manager meets with the
staff nurses to discuss patient care and unit management” the highest score for
importance. Four factors (marriage status, age, years of clinical experience,
and training background) affected the professional awareness of recognition
behaviors. Our results suggest that nurse managers need to consider these factors
when they conduct recognition behaviors.