The mediating effect of knowledge sharing between organisational culture and turnover intentions of professional nurses

Abstract

Professional nurses routinely use highly developed domain knowledge in combination with experiential knowledge to deliver quality care. However, this knowledge is often lost to employers as the migration of professional nurses from the developing countries to the developed world has become a global problem. The objective of this study therefore was to determine the relationships between organisational culture, knowledge sharing and turnover intentions and thereafter to propose knowledge sharing as a mediating variable in this relationship in order to suggest a retention strategy. A cross-sectional field survey design with questionnaires was used on a sample of professional nurses (N = 530) in private and provincial hospitals in South Africa. The tri-variate procedure of Baron and Kenny for mediation testing was adopted. The results indicated that a positive correlation exists between organisational culture and knowledge sharing, but a significant negative correlation between organisational culture and turnover intentions, as well as between knowledge sharing and turnover intentions. Finally, the results indicated that knowledge sharing mediates the relationship between organisational culture and turnover intentions, although with a small effect size.The findings suggest that turnover intentions of nurses can be actively managed through contextual variables such as organisational culture and opportunities for knowledge sharing.