Comparing the impact of management on public and private sector nurses in the UK, Italy, and Australia

Abstract

The research examined the impact of management upon employee outcomes (perceptions of discretionary power, wellbeing, engagement, and affective commitment), comparing public and private sector nurses in Australia, the United Kingdom, and Italy. Overall, 1945 nurses participated in a self-report survey within these core-and laggard-New Public Management countries. While management influenced employee outcomes for each country, there were significant differences between the public and private sectors, with private sector nurses reporting higher perceptions of outcomes. Importantly, nurses' engagement was affected by management practice for each country. This study raises important implications for nurse managers, especially public sector managers, described within.

Managerial competences in public organisations: the healthcare professionals’ perspective

“…The public sector has often been criticised for its bureaucratic personnel management system, and over the years, the emphasis on the adoption of private sector HRM practices has increased. However, in recent years, research has begun to recognise the limitations of importing private HRM practices into the public sector, especially into organisations with a strong presence of professionals, as in the case of healthcare organisations [3,9]. Historically, clinicians, as compared with other professional groups, are more inclined to reject managerial intervention in their work, and the direct control of their behaviour by the organisation has often been ineffectual [17].…”

“…In fact, public organisations and government policies should work together to retain and develop the competences considered as priorities for the healthcare sector [13]. While governments should promote system-level policies which lie above bureaucratic personnel management, public managers need to be able to successfully implement these innovative forms of management [2,9].…”

“…It is this power which has enabled them to challenge and even violate managerial directives in ways in which other employees cannot [8]. Several authors claim that the HRM practices inspired by NPM have in fact failed in public organisations where there is a large proportion of professionals [3,5,9]. For such organisations, it is necessary to implement innovative HRM systems that enhance the characteristics of professionals, i.e.…”

Changing role of HRM in the public sector

“…At the start of the 21 st century 'empowerment' was one of the key HRM buzzwords, however it has been superseded by employee engagement, a more substantial and widespread policy, although actual practice varies. The role of employee engagement is particularly pertinent to professionals as their 'loyalties' may be split between their organisation, profession and end-users, and has been extensively explored by Brunetto et al (2015Brunetto et al ( , 2018 in health and policing (Brunetto et al 2017), such variations in engagement can have a profound impact on organisational commitment, job satisfaction and employee health and wellbeing. The employee engagement agenda requires much in terms of the leadership qualities of those responsible for leading professionals who themselves may have varied agendas.…”

Psychosocial work environment and cross‐cultural competence among native and foreign‐born registered nurses

“…In addition to gender and age, the associations of interest were examined controlling for the potential confounding effects of employment sector and frequency of interacting with patients and colleagues from different cultures. These factors have previously been documented to be linked to psychosocial work characteristics (Aalto, Heponiemi, Vaananen, et al, ; Brunetto et al, ) and cross‐cultural competence (Kaihlanen et al, ; Repo, Vahlberg, Salminen, Papadopoulos, & Leino‐Kilpi, ).…”