Work Ethics of Multigenerational Nurses in a General Hospital
Keywords:
Work ethics, Multigenerational nurses, Generation X nurses, Generation Y nurses, General hospitalAbstract
The work ethics of nurses is important for nursing professional practice. Work ethics is the attitude and belief of nurses regarding work, and this has an influence on their work behaviors. Nevertheless, a nursing organization comprises a multigenerational nursing workforce. The purpose of this descriptive comparative study was to study the work ethics of multigenera- tional nurses in a general hospital in Chiang Mai province and to compare the differences in work ethics among them. The sample included 148 nurses working in nursing work groups. The study instrument was the Work Ethics Scale developed by Sharma and Rai, and the Cronbach’s alpha of this scale was 0.84. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and the Mann-Whitney U test.
The results revealed that:
1. The work ethics among Generation X and Generation Y, and both generations of nurses together were at a high level (M = 24.21, SD = 2.88; M = 21.45, SD = 3.78; and M = 22.25, SD = 3.75, respectively).
2. Generation X nurses had a higher work ethics score than Generation Y nurses (U = 1258.0, p < .001).
The results of this study provide basic information regarding the work ethics of nurses that nurse administrators can use for administrative planning to promote and maintain work ethics among nurses in every generation, and especially to improve the work ethics of Generation Y nurses.
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