Leader-member exchange and affective commitment, engagement, wellbeing, intention to turnover: the italian findings

This paper examines the relationship between the supervisor-subordinate relationship, engagement, wellbeing, affective commitment and turnover within the Italian context. This study is important because of the shortage of nurses in Italy and the changing nature of nursing. According to IPASVI, the Italian Nurses’ Federation, Nurses in Italy number approximately 355.000, the 25.4% works in North-East regions, the 20.6% in Central regions, the 21.9% in Southern regions and the 10.8% in Islands (IPASVI 2009). Almost the 78% of nurses are female but male rate is increasing (IPASVI 2009). The average age of the nurses is climbing: in 2009 was almost 42 years (IPASVI 2009), quite high related to Italian nurses job description. The 93% of nurses found their job within the first year from degree (Mastrillo 2011) and the average monthly income is 1300 euros. While nurses have professional job description development during their career, usually don’t have a consequential increasing of their income. Mile stones of Italian nurses education are the following: (i) 1992, introduction of nursing education in universities along with university diploma courses for nurses (Leg. D. 502/517, 1992); (ii) 2001, university diploma courses for nurses were changed into threeyear degrees (Dec. 128, 2001); (iii) 2004, in the academic year 2004-2005, the Masters Decree at last becomes a concrete reality (Dec. 2791, 2004). All nurses aged below thirty years of age (that is fall within the “Generation Y” generational cohort) have university education. The average turnover rate is higher in Northern Italy, especially in Milan. In the last 10 years, a worrisome nursing shortage has been observed, estimated in 40.000 nurses by IPAVSI (Destrebecq et al, 2009). Due to that, there has been an expansion of nurses’ immigration to Italy (Chaloff, 2008): between 2002 and 2009, nurses’ hospital managers of Lombardy Region’s public hospitals joined a EURES’ (European Employment Services) program to provide placement services in Italy for Spanish nurses. In 2009, almost 10% of nurses working in Italy emigrated from other Countries (IPASVI, 2009). After the last few years of shortage, 2010 financial law has limited public sector new employments. However, there remains an imperative to retain tacit skills and knowledge of those nurses already employed within Italian hospitals. This paper examines the factors that impact on Italian nurses’ intention to leave.