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Downsizing-initiated Job Transfer of Hospital Nurses: How Do the Job Transferees Fare?
MARJORIE ARMSTRONG-STASSEN, SHEILA J. CAMERON, and MARTHA E. HORSBURGH
JHHSA, Vol. 23 No. 4,
(2001)
In this longitudinal panel study, we compared the
reactions to hospital amalgamation of 66 nurses who had
been transferred to a different unit for a downsizing-related
reason (bumped/displaced, unit closed, redundancy) with
the reactions of 181 nurses who remained on their same
unit. Prior to any job transfers, the two groups perceived
comparable levels of support and held similar attitudes
towards their job and the hospital. Two years later, after
job transfers had taken place, transferred nurses perceived
significantly lower coworker support and were less
satisfied with their coworkers than nurses who were not
transferred. They also reported a significantly greater
decrease in organizational commitment than nurses who
were not transferred. However, both groups of nurses
reported a significant decrease between time 1 and time 2 in perceived organizational support, satisfaction with
amount of work and career future, hospital identification,
and organizational trust. Overall, the results indicate that
the downsizing associated with the amalgamation of the
hospitals had a highly negative effect not only on those
nurses who were transferred because of the downsizing but
also on those nurses who remained on their original unit.
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