Date of Award

Summer 2022

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

School

Leadership and Advanced Nursing Practice

Committee Chair

Lachel Story

Committee Chair School

Leadership and Advanced Nursing Practice

Committee Member 2

Patsy Anderson

Committee Member 2 School

Leadership and Advanced Nursing Practice

Committee Member 3

Marti Jordan

Committee Member 3 School

Leadership and Advanced Nursing Practice

Committee Member 4

Hwanseok Choi

Committee Member 4 School

Health Professions

Committee Member 5

Elise Juergens

Abstract

Cultivating the shared belief that individuals matter within an organization enhances the empowerment of staff and supports enthusiastic engagement in organizational efforts aimed toward a common mission, vision, and goals (McShane & Von Glinow, 2019). The nursing profession has been plagued by an unprecedented decrease in engagement and diminished job satisfaction, particularly following the prolonged tenure of the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to subsequent attrition amidst a staffing crisis. This quantitative predictive correlational study seeks to determine whether proactive and persevering characteristics, professional identity, and passion of nurses are predictors of engagement in a post-COVID healthcare environment. The research was based on transformational leadership theory and utilized the existing Nurses Positive Energy of Retention instrument developed by Wu et al. (2019). The study incorporated a convenience sample of nurses (N = 132) and was conducted through Qualtrics utilizing a Likert scale questionnaire. The outcome variable was defined as nurses’ positive energy of retention (NPER), which determines the engagement of nursing staff within their professional work environment. A non-parametric analysis of the variables utilizing Spearman’s rho found the relationship of each of the primary variables (proactive and persevering characteristics, professional identity, and passion of nurses) to engagement to be highly statistically significant (<.001). The proposed implementation of transformative leadership supports these relationships and fosters a culture of engagement and empowerment, impacting nursing at its core and positively guiding the profession into the future.

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