How Does Servant Leadership Nurture Nurses’ Job Embeddedness? Uncovering Sequential Mediation of Psychological Contract Fulfillment and Psychological Ownership

Abstract

Aim. This research aimed to explore how servant leadership nurtures nurses’ job embeddedness by uncovering the sequential mediation of psychological contract fulfillment and psychological ownership. Background. The healthcare of Pakistan is undergoing an acute shortage of 1.3 million nurses. The gap is widening due to unprecedented natural uncertainties (floods, earthquakes, COVID-19, dengue, polio, and monkeypox) and the large-scale brain drain of nurses. Therefore, exploring the underlying factors that could facilitate nurses’ job embeddedness is imperative. Methods. A cross-sectional research design was employed, wherein data were gathered in three rounds, two months apart, from 587 nurses employed in public hospitals in Pakistan, and analysis was performed with Smart-PLS. Results. Servant leadership positively influences nurses’ job embeddedness and psychological contract fulfillment. Besides, psychological contract fulfillment positively affects psychological ownership, and psychological ownership enhances nurses’ job embeddedness. Finally, psychological contract fulfillment and psychological ownership sequentially mediate the relationship between servant leadership and job embeddedness. Conclusions. This research emphasized the vitality of servant leadership in nurturing nurses’ job embeddedness. Implications for Nursing Management. Healthcare authorities should keenly focus on promoting servant leadership that shapes the positive perception of nurses about their psychological contract fulfillment and psychological ownership, which are essential resources to cherish nurses’ job embeddedness.

The relationship between servant leadership and nurses' in‐role performance: The sequential mediating effects of job autonomy and emotional exhaustion

“…The result is consistent with Faraz et al. 's (2023) findings that servant nurse heads will fulfil nursing staff's psychological contracts as servant leaders care about followers' job needs, personal growth and mental health.…”

“…When nurses' basic needs are fulfilled, they tend to experience less burnout, stress and psychological illness (Prapanjaroensin et al, 2017). The result is consistent with Faraz et al's (2023) findings that servant nurse heads will fulfil nursing staff's psychological contracts as servant leaders care about followers' job needs, personal growth and mental health.…”

“…In addition, we adopted Model 4 and Model 6 of Hayes (2022) PROCESS Macro within IBM SPSS to test our hypothesized model. Following prior research (Faraz et al., 2023), we employed the bias‐corrected bootstrapping technique with 5000 bootstrap samples to calculate the 95% confidence intervals (CI). The upper limit and the lower limit of a 95% CI excluding zero show the significance of the specific relationship (Zhai et al., 2023).…”

The role of nursing work environment, head nurse leadership and presenteeism on job embeddedness among new nurses：A cross-sectional multicenter study

“…The second step is to improve the leadership of head nurses. The change of leadership styles such as humility, service and agility can adapt to the needs of different new nurses or different stages of the same nurse, so as to exibly adjust the embeddedness of new nurses [20,23]. The third step is to reduce presenteeism.…”

“…Managers' leadership behaviour is considered an in uencing factor for nurses' job embeddedness [19]. Service-oriented leaders can develop psychological contracts with nurses, increase their psychological belongingness, and cultivate job embeddedness [20]. Zhao Mengshu et al found that empowering leadership can provide nurses with more opportunities and resources, enable them to obtain greater autonomy, and improve their work embeddedness level [21].…”