Impact of Leader-member-exchange and Team-member-exchange on Nurses' Job Satisfaction and Turnover Intention

Aim: To investigate the impacts of leader-member exchange and team-member exchange on job satisfaction and turnover intention of nurses.

Background: Leader-member exchange refers to the quality of relationships between leaders and members of a team and studies on this have generally focused on the aspect of member-leader-member exchanges. In nursing, the latter can refer to a situation where nurses (members) evaluate their relationship with their head nurse (leader). Member-leader-member exchange affects job satisfaction and turnover intention of nurses. However, even though all of these types of exchanges are important, few studies have examined their effects on job satisfaction and the turnover intention of nurses.

Methods: Participants in this descriptive study were 40 head nurses and 284 clinical nurses working at three hospitals in Korea. Data were collected from a questionnaire and analysed using hierarchical multiple regression.

Results: Leader-leader-member exchange, member-leader-member exchange, and team-member exchange had a positive effect on job satisfaction. However, only leader-leader-member exchange and member-leader-member exchange affected turnover intention.

Conclusions: The impacts of leader-leader-member exchange, team-member exchange, and member-leader-member exchange on job satisfaction were confirmed. To reduce turnover intention, our study found it is more important to improve leader-member exchange than team-member exchange.

Implications For Nursing Practice: In health organizations, there is an important need to focus on the communication and exchange relationships between leaders and their staff, well as among the members, to increase job satisfaction. This will assist leaders to play an important role in lowering nurses' turnover intention and create an organizational culture in which nurses can communicate well with them.

Implications For Nursing Policy: Policy changes are needed so that the components of job performance evaluation for nurse leaders also include attendance at regular programmes, such as training to improve their leadership and communication skills, and consultations with their staff members.