The changing nature of organizational commitment in the acute care environment. Implications for nursing leadership

The downsizing of the acute care sector of healthcare is providing hospital nursing staff with fewer alternative employment options in the areas in which they currently work. This greater employment uncertainty is likely to affect the variables that organizational behaviorialists have found to both enhance or detract from the organizational commitment that staff members feel toward the organization. The author analyzes the latent effects of the progressive changes being sustained in acute care work markets that influenced nurses' perceived levels of organizational commitment in earlier times. The research conducted in this field by both nursing and other disciplines is reviewed, and implications are proposed.