Despite the large number of studies that have examined the antecedents of organisational commitment, the investigation of the influence of organisational culture and subculture on commitment is noticeably absent. The aim of this thesis is to examine the effects of both organisational culture and subculture on organisational commitment. Other measures which have been shown to be related to either organisational commitment or organisational culture are also included in the study. These are leadership style, job satisfaction and demographic variables such as age, education, years in position and years of experience. Recently, multivariate studies have examined the causal relationships between a variety of different variables and organisational commitment, and a number of these have concluded that the effects of these variables on organisational commitment were mainly mediated by job satisfaction. The data gathered in the present study is examined to determine if it is consistent with job satisfaction fulfilling such a mediating role between commitment and the other variables in the study. Also, a multi-dimensional measure of job satisfaction is employed in the present study and the effects of the different job satisfaction components on commitment are investigated. The subjects used in this study were nurses working in different hospital settings. A questionnaire survey was used which was complemented by semistructured interviews. A total of 398 questionnaires were distributed to nurses in seven hospitals, from which 251 completed questionnaires were returned (63.5% response rate). The sample was obtained from three general public hospitals, two private hospitals and two psychiatric hospitals. Correlational and regression analyses were used to investigate the relationships between nurses' commitment to their wards and the other variables measured in the study. A causal model of commitment was developed using a multiple regression analysis in which the role of job satisfaction in mediating the causal link between commitment and the other variables was explored. It was found that organisational subculture had a greater impact on commitment than organisational culture. Innovative and supportive subcultures had a positive effect on commitment and a bureaucratic subculture had a negative effect on commitment. The leadership style variable, consideration, also exerted a relatively strong influence on commitment when compared with other variables included in the study. The results of this study also revealed that the job satisfaction dimensions with the strongest associations with commitment were the control, professionalism and interaction dimensions, which represent intrinsic factors of job satisfaction or those related to higherorder needs in Maslow's (1943) hierarchy. Age showed a direct positive influence on commitment. However, the level of education, years in position and years of clinical experience failed to showed any impact on commitment. Thus, the results of this study are not in agreement with causal models (such as that proposed by Williams and Hazer 1986), in which the influence of various antecedents on commitment are totally mediated via their influence on job satisfaction. The effect of the culture and leadership style variables on commitment was found to be significantly reduced, but not totally eliminated, after statistically controlling for the job satisfaction variables. Finally, in relation to the different hospital groups, the results showed that private hospitals had the strongest bureaucratic ward culture when compared to general public and psychiatric hospitals. The most innovative ward culture was found in general public hospitals and the most supportive ward culture was found in psychiatric hospitals. These findings were contrary to expected outcomes.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/269645 |
| Date | January 1997 |
| Publisher | University of Technology, Sydney. Graduate School of Business |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English, en_AU |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | http://www.lib.uts.edu.au/disclaimer.html, Copyright Peter Lok |
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