Factors Influencing Workplace Social Capital of Nurses in Zhejiang Province, the People’s Republic of China

Abstract

Nurses’ workplace social capital is the relational network configured by respectful interactions among nursing professionals and between the other healthcare professionals. The objectives of this descriptive predictive study were to examine the level of workplace social capital, transformational leadership, emotional intelligence and organizational justice, as well as to explore factors influencing workplace social capital as perceived by nurses. The sample consisted of 384 Chinese nurses working in three tertiary hospitals in Lishui, Zhejiang province, P.R. China. The research instruments included the Personal Data Form, the Short Measure of Workplace Social Capital (Kouvonen et al., 2006), the Leadership Practice Inventory (Posner & Kouzes, 1988), the Emotional Intelligence Scale (Wong & Law, 2002) and the Organizational Justice Measure (Colquitt, 2001). The Cronbach’s α coefficient of the Eight-Item Short Measure of Workplace Social Capital, the Leadership Practice Inventory, the Emotional Intelligence Scale, and the Organizational Justice Measure were .89, .98, .93 and .95, respectively. Stepwise multiple regression was used to examine the predictors of workplace social capital. The results revealed that 1. The overall levels of nurses’ workplace social capital and all social capital dimensions were high. Likewise, the overall levels of transformational leadership of the

vi head nurses and all transformational leadership dimensions were also high. The overall level of individual nurses’ emotional intelligence was high, though scores for two of four dimensions, use of emotion and others’ emotion appraisal, were moderate. The level of overall organizational justice and its two dimensions, namely procedural and distributive justice, were moderate. 2. Multiple regression analysis results indicated that transformational leadership and emotional intelligence were significant predictors of workplace social capital, explaining a total of variance of 48.6% of workplace social capital (R2 = 48.6, F = 160.936, P = .00). The strongest predictor was transformational leadership (β = .656, P = .000), followed by emotional intelligence (β = .096, P = .022). Other factors, including organizational justice, work unit size, professional position, education level, years in current unit and monthly income, were not be a predictor of workplace social capital (P > .05). The findings of this study provide suggestions for nursing administrators and health policy makers to develop appropriate strategies to enhance workplace social capital for nurses.