Psychological Contract Breach and Its Influence on the Job Embeddedness of Professional Nurses

Abstract

A shortage of professional nurses is a global concern, and employers of professional nurses in many countries, including South Africa, are losing them to lucrative international job opportunities, further exacerbating the problem. Traditionally, the migration of nurses is studied in the context of turnover and turnover intentions. With the aim of contributing to the knowledge on the retention of nurses, this study examined whether breach of the psychological contract predicts nurses’ job embeddedness, as embeddedness has been found to increase intention to stay. A cross-sectional sample of 228 professional nurses was drawn from private hospitals in South Africa. Hierarchical regression and ANOVA were used to examine the relationship and group differences. The findings indicate that, after controlling for age, citizenship, and employment status, psychological contract breach negatively impacts job embeddedness. The implication for managers is that employers of professional nurses must honour their obligations and promises made to retain them as part of the retention strategy to stem this outflow and loss of expertise.