The relationships between organisational citizenship behaviour, job satisfaction and turnover intention

Aim: This study aims to explore the relationships between organisational citizenship behaviour, job satisfaction and turnover intention.

Background: Because of the changing health policies landscape, Taiwan's hospital administrators are facing major cost reduction challenges. Specifically, the high turnover rate of nurses represents a hindrance and a human resource cost. This study focuses on ways of reducing the employee turnover rate through enhanced organisational citizenship behaviour and job satisfaction.

Design: A cross-sectional study.

Methods: This study focuses on hospital nurses in Taiwan. Our research samples were obtained from one medical centre, three regional hospitals and seven district hospitals. Out of 300 questionnaires distributed among samples, 237 were completed and returned. Pearson's correlation was used to test for relationships among the main variables. One-way analysis of variance and Scheffé's post hoc analysis were employed to test the influence of demographic data on the main variables.

Results: The results reveal that the nurses' job satisfaction has a significantly positive correlation with organisational citizenship behaviour and a negative correlation with turnover intention.

Conclusions: This study has proven that the turnover intention of clinical nurses is related to their organisational citizenship behaviour and job satisfaction. Hospital administrators can reduce the turnover intention by meeting nurses' needs and by promoting their organisational citizenship behaviour.

Relevance to clinical practice: Organisational citizenship behaviour involves behaviour that encourages staff to endeavour to voluntarily improve organisational performance without lobbying for compensation. Employees' job satisfaction includes satisfaction with the working environment or welfare programme in the context of human resource initiatives. Similarly, human resource protocols may serve as the starting point for promoting staff organisational citizenship behaviour. Administrators in clinical healthcare are encouraged to meet their employees' working needs through human resource practices.