Organizational Behavior and Nursing Turnover: A Systematic Review of Research Publications

Background: The nursing workforce is a very important one as nurses form a vital component of healthcare delivery worldwide. The global nursing shortage is continuously wreaking havoc at all levels of the global health system, with no end in sight. Nursing turnover intentions leading to actual turnover has been established as a major cause of this shortage globally.

Objectives: Considering the fact that organizational behavior variables have been established in the literature as closely related to nursing turnover, this study sought to present a systematic literature review of empirical literature in the field of organizational behavior and nursing turnover research to chart a path forward.

Methods: The study is a systematic review of literature obtained from published papers relating to the research topic. The authors examined the research issues, theoretical and conceptual approaches, methodologies, geographical distribution and key research trends and gaps related to organizational behavior and nursing turnover research globally. Five electronic databases (i.e., PubMed, Science Direct, Google Scholar, Wiley, and Emerald) were the main search engines used. Strings such as Nurses' turnover intentions, Nurses' turnover behavior, organizational behavior, and nursing guided the search. More focused inclusion and exclusion criteria were further applied to screen the search results yield 77 most relevant papers used for the review.

Results: Research issues commonly examined in organizational behavior and nursing turnover research are the organizational behavior variables which serve as predictors of nursing turnover (58%). Further, most organizational behavior and nursing turnover papers are atheoretical in nature (44%), employ a quantitative approach to data collection and analyses (96%), are mostly conducted in Asia and Europe (56% and 19%), and focus mostly on the micro level of analyses (38%). From these findings, methodological, contextual, theoretical, and operational gaps as well as challenges in the level of analysis and publication outlets. The authors recommend increased funding opportunities for research and publication in this area to whip the interest of researchers, particularly in developing countries who have funding challenges to research and publish in this area for of global interest.