Delegation and Its Relation to Job Involvement as Perceived by Staff Nurses in selected Hospital in Minia Governorate

Introduction

Employees who are engaged in their work and committed to their organizations give companies crucial competitive advantages including higher productivity and lower employee turnover. Thus, it is not surprising that organizations of all sizes and types have invested substantially in policies and practices that foster engagement and commitment in their workforces. One of the greatest sources for employee engagement and involvement in their organization is to give them the power and this power can be in a form of authority delegation ⁽¹⁾.

Delegation is more of truly empowering people than participation. Therefore, delegation has stronger relationship with satisfaction, performance and involvement than does participation only as one of the important dimensions of empowerment ⁽²⁾.

Delegation is a vital skill for nurses, so they need to be more knowledgeable and responsible in order to achieve effective delegation. It is an important element in the day-to-day nursing activities and one of many reasons in which any organization must have clear policies and guidelines regarding delegation⁽³⁾.Meanwhile the nationwide shortage of nurses makes delegation an important skill because the workforce is comprised of many different levels of caregivers; thus an effective delegation increases productivity, builds trust, engages nurses' staff in work and goes a long way to build a culture of accountability ⁽⁴⁾.

On the other hand, job involvement is seen as means of aiding productivity and creating work situations in which individual and organizational goals are integrated. This involvement leads to enhanced satisfaction and increased productivity for the organization. Job involvement has also been reported to be a top organizational priority as fostering employee involvement can enhance an organizational effectiveness ⁽⁵⁾.Job Involvement is the degree to which employees submerse themselves in their jobs, devote time and energy in them, and consider work as a central part of their overall lives ⁽⁶⁾.

Job involvement considered being as motivation to carry out work and it is highly compatible between personal and organizational goals, which stimulate motivation among the employees to generate positive work outcomes. Job involvement is one’s cognitive needs‟ fulfillment, which assists him or her to work harder and boost up his or her performance. Indeed, a higher degree of job involvement among the members of an organization is essential to enhance the organizational effectiveness ⁽⁷⁾. There is a general consensus among researchers that employees with a high level of job involvement would place their jobs at the center of their overall interests ⁽⁸⁾.On the other hand, employees with low levels of job involvement concentrate on other interests rather than their jobs ⁽⁹⁾, and will be less creative and innovative ⁽¹⁰⁾.

Therefore, when subordinates are delegated, they may feel trusted, organizationally important, and higher status within organization ⁽¹¹⁾. Delegation may also boost subordinates’ self-esteem and make them believe that they are capable of performing tasks successfully and that their behavior makes a difference. Delegation enables subordinates to exercise self-direction and control, provides employees with meaning, perceptions of self-efficacy and self-determination and the perception that they make an impact, all of which have been identified as key ingredients of empowerment ⁽¹²⁾.

The leader's empowerment is the ability of the leader to communicate with his followers, giving them confidence for creating stable environment, granting more responsibility to increase their response and empower them to work ⁽¹³⁾. It has been enhanced through strategic thinking skills which represented by novelty, high performance leaders' capacities and the making of the organization's inner meaning potency to be the catalyst for increasing the job involvement of the employee as making them fell that they are important for the organization, contribute on the organization's success and self-determination, and they are part of it, perceiving work as a key element in their lives and submerging in their current job ^{(14, 15)}.

Aim of the study:

The aim of the current study is to investigate the delegation and its relation to job involvement as perceived by staff nurses in selected hospital in Minia governorate

Significance of the Study

Strong delegation techniques can help managers save time, motivate people, and train people, as well as these techniques can enable managers to select new opportunities which lead to job satisfaction, commitment and job involvement among nurses. However, the lack of delegation practices often leaves people frustrated, unmotivated, and under-trained, while the manager remains overworked. During my work it was observed that there were difficulties and constrains to delegate tasks and duties from managers to their subordinates. This may be related to, managers do not delegate task in right manner and sometimes staff nurses don't accept delegated duties and this may be lead to hinder job involvement which may affect the patient outcome negatively.

There is little empirical research has examined delegation in long-term care despite growing recognition of the critical role of delegation in quality of long-term care. Hall, et al. (2015) ⁽¹⁶⁾ and Standing (2001) ⁽¹⁷⁾found that the failure of staff nurses to receive directions was related to poor delegated care tasks with (37%); so they highlight the importance of understanding how delegation occurs, because the relationships between delegation processes and patient care outcomes. Thus, the researcher introducing this study to assess the delegation and its relation with job involvement among staff.

Research Questions:

1)       What is the perception of delegation as perceived by staff nurses in selected hospitals at Minia governorate?

2)       What is the perception of job involvement among staff nurses in selected hospitals at Minia governorate?

3)       Is there a significant relation between delegation and job involvement among staff nurses in selected hospitals at Minia governorate?

Subjects & Methods

Research design

A descriptive correlational research design was used to achieve the aim of the present study.

Settings:

The study conducted at two hospitals as; Elfkrea Hospital in Abo Korkas district, and Samalot hospital in Samalot district in El-Minia governorate.

Study subjects:

The subjects of study sample was included all staff nurses working in all nursing departments at the hospitals during the period of data collection sample size (N=245).

Tools of data collection:

Data was collected through the utilization of two tools as follows:           

Tool (1) The Delegation Questionnaire: it consists of two parts:

First part: personal data sheet:That used to collect data about the personal characteristics of the study participants. It included items related to code number, age, gender, nursing qualification and years of experience.

Second part: The Delegation Questionnaire: This tool was developed by Longenecker and Pringle (1984) ⁽¹⁸⁾ and was modified and translated to Arabic by the researcher.  It included 30 items with five point Likret scale ranged as (1=highly don’t agree to 5=highly agree). The scoring system was ranged from (30 to 150).

Tool (2): The job involvement Scale:

This tool was designed by Lodahl and Kejner (1965) ⁽¹⁹⁾ and it consisted of 20 items. The items response based on a 5 point Likret scale ranging from (1=strongly disagree, to 5=strongly agree). The scoring system was ranged from (20 to 100).

Validity of the study tools:

The tool was tested for the content validity by a jury of (5) experts in the field of nursing administration; two assistants' professors of nursing administration at Faculty of Nursing, Minia University and three assistant professors of nursing administration at Faculty of Nursing, Assuit University and the required necessary modifications done for their clarity, wording length, format, and overall appearance.

Reliability of tools:

Internal consistency the questionnaires was assessed with the Cronbach's alpha coefficient. Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.00 indicates no reliability and a coefficient of 1.00 indicates perfect reliability. The alpha coefficients for the tool (I) delegation authority (α=0.832), and the alpha coefficients for the job involvement scale (α= 0.736).

Pilot study:

A pilot study was conducted on 10% (25) of participants who selected randomly from the total participated students prior to data collection. Results indicated that; the tools were applicable and don’t need any changes. The time consumed to fill the questionnaire by nurses was estimated after pilot study and it was between 20 to 30 minutes approximately.

Study procedure:

An official permission to conduct the present study was obtained from each of the following; research ethical committee; The Dean of Faculty of Nursing; the Vice Dean of post graduate studies and Research at Faculty of Nursing, then another approval from the directors of the two hospitals, asking for the permission to collect data. This letter was included a brief explanation about the purpose of the study. After explaining the purpose and the nature of the study, the researcher informed the staff nurses that their participation in the study is voluntary and confidential. Then the researcher interviewed with them daily through morning shift except in Fridays; and data collection lasted for about 4 months from beginning of May month to end of August month 2018. The researcher introduced the questionnaire to the staff nurses and waits with them during their working hours to fill it, to check that all items were answered, to ensure objectivity of the responses, and to collected it after filling.

Ethical Considerations:

A written initial approval was obtained from the research ethics committee of the Faculty of Nursing, and then another approval to conduct the study was obtained from the managers of El-Fekrea hospital and Samalot hospital asking for the permission to collect data. The participants were informed that their participation in the study will be completely voluntary and there will be no harm if they not participate in the study.

Statistical analysis of data

Upon completion of data collection, the data were scored, tabulated and analyzed through data entry and analysis by computer using the "statistical package for Social Sciences" version 21.  Data were presented using descriptive statics in the form of percentages, frequency, mean and standard deviation. The p value >0.05 indicate non-significant result while the p value 0.05indicate significant result and is highly significant at (p<0.01) level.

Results:

Table (1) Distribution of the staff nurses personal data characteristics (n=245)

Table (1) showed personal data characteristics of the staff nurses. For staff nurses at Samalot Hospital; it was noted as regards to age, more than half (52.2 %) of staff nurses in the age group from 20-30 years, with mean score (1.94+0.95). According to gender, more than three quarter of staff nurses (78.3%) were female; regarding to qualification, more than half (56.5%) had technical degree. In relation to years of experience, the highest percent (46.1%) of them had (11 to 20) years of experience. For staff nurses at El-fekria hospital; it was noted regarding the age that highest percent (41.5 %) of staff nurses in the age group from 20-30 years. As regards to gender near three quarter (73.8%) was female and about their qualification more than half of them (56.9%) had technical degree. In relation to experience, the highest percent (52.3%) of staff nurses had (11 to 20) years of experience.

Table (2) the percentage distribution regarding the staff nurses in relation to delegation dimensions and job involvement

Table (2) showed that, the majority of staff nurses explore the responses toward (Low level) with high percentage regarding to all delegation dimensions “efficiency, effectiveness, empowerment and delegation process"; as well as total delegation and job involvement in El-Fekria and Samalot hospital

Table (3) the relation of staff nurses' delegation and job involvement with their personal data atSamalot hospital

Table (3) revealed that, there were no statistical significant differences between delegation or the job involvement and all staff nurses' personal data at Samalot hospital except a statistical significant difference between delegation and years of experience (p =0.039) and a statistical significant between job involvement and years of experience (p=.002) in favor to staff nurses who had (6-10) years of experiences.

Table (4) the differences between Elfkrea staff nurses hospital in relation to delegation, job involvement and their personal data (N=130)

Table (4) displayed that there were no statistical significant differences between delegation or the job involvement and all staff nurses' personal data at El-Fekria hospital.

Table (5) Analysis of variance between Samalot Hospital and Elfkrea Hospital Regarding to delegation of authority and job involvement

Table (5) clarified that there was a statically significant difference between Samalot Hospital and Elfkrea Hospital regarding to delegation of authority and job involvement (p=0.004, and p=0.022 respectively).

Table (6) the correlation between delegation and job involvement of the organization among staff nurses (n=245)

Table (6) showed that, there were positive strong significant correlations between delegation of authority and its dimensions (efficiency, effectiveness, empowerment and delegation process) and job involvement.