Title: Work-life balance, job satisfaction and nurses retention: moderating role of work volition

Authors: Alamzeb Aamir; Abu Bakar Abdul Hamid; Maqsood Haider; Chaudhry Shoaib Akhtar

Addresses: Department of Management, University Technology Malaysia (UTM), Johor, Malaysia ' Faculty of Management (FM), Department of Business Administration, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), 813100 Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia ' Department of Management, University Technology Malaysia (UTM), Johor, Malaysia ' Department of Management, University Technology Malaysia (UTM), Johor, Malaysia

Abstract: Retention of competent employees is becoming a huge challenge for organisations and more so for healthcare institutions. The growing shortage of nursing staff and its potential effect on the healthcare industry is of paramount importance. To retain the existing staff and to attract potential new entrants, healthcare organisations have to adopt strategies that would help them in retention. So, creating a balance between work-life is found as one of the suitable practices that when adopted can reduce work related stresses, increase satisfaction and performance. This study investigated the influence of work-life balance on job satisfaction leading to retention. Further, work volition was tested as a moderator between work-life balance and job satisfaction. The study results indicate significant influence of all work volition as a moderator. The study found that job satisfaction had a partial mediation effect on the relationship of work-life balance and retention.

Keywords: work-life balance; job satisfaction; work volition; hospitals; nursing staff; nurses; nurse retention; employee retention; healthcare staff.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBEX.2016.079257

International Journal of Business Excellence, 2016 Vol.10 No.4, pp.488 - 501

Received: 16 Jan 2015
Accepted: 23 Mar 2015
Published online: 26 Sep 2016 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article