Nursing under inconsistent organizational conditions

Abstract

Purpose – Health care organizations often experience difficulty in aligning competing and changing demands, tasks and other organizational conditions in a consistent way, so that they uniformly influence employee outcomes in desired directions. The purpose of this paper is to theorize about the ways in which inconsistent organizational conditions affect employee outcomes, the authors introduce the concept of double bind situation, and assess its impact on negative employee outcomes among nurses in Dutch health care organizations. Design/methodology/approach – A survey was held among 4,018 Dutch nurses as a part of the European NEXT study. Various psychometric scales served as “proxy” operationalizations of the characteristics of the double bind situation and employee outcomes. Findings – Three of the seven distinguished characteristics of the double bind situation showed the expected direction and strength of impact. Together, they accounted for 20 percent explained variance in employee outcomes. The results suggest that a double bind situation does exist for the nurses surveyed and that three of its seven characteristics have an impact on negative employee outcomes. Originality/value – This study is among the first to empirically assess the impact of the double bind situation in health care organizations. In this way, it contributes valuable knowledge to the development and retention of staff in a relevant public sector, characterized by high personnel turnover and profound organizational change.