Organizational Justice: An Educational Program for Nurses’ Leaders to Enhance the Creativity of their Staff Nurses at Work.

Organizational Justice: An Educational Program for Nurses’ Leaders to Enhance the Creativity of their Staff Nurses at Work.

Aliaa Ezz El Din Abd El Moaty 1, Gehan Mohamed Ahmed Mostafa 2 , Lamiaa Ismail Zaki keshk 3

1 (Assistant Lecturer, Nursing Administration department, Faculty of Nursing/ Helwan University, Egypt)*

2 (Professor and Head of Nursing Administration department, Faculty of Nursing/ Helwan University, Egypt)

3 (Professor of Nursing Administration department, Faculty of Nursing/ Helwan University, Egypt)

Abstract

     Background: Organizational justice encourages the employee to work in healthy environment which is suitable to work creatively. Aim: The curent study aimed to explore the Effect of Nurses Leaders’ Educational Program about Organizational Justice on the Creativity of their Staff Nurses at Work. Design: Quasi-experimental research design was used in this study.Setting:The study was conducted at one of the private hospital in Cairo- Egypt. Subjects: A convenience sample of nurses leaders were included (N=48). Also, convenience sample of staff nurses were included (N=110). Data collection tools: Organizational justice scale and Creativity questionnaire sheet. Two tools were used before, after and follow up implementing educational program about organizational justice for nurses' leaders at work. Results: More than three quarters of the studied nurses’ leaders (85.4%) had high level of organizational justice after implementation of educational program. The majority of the studied staff nurses (93.6%) had high level of creativity after implementation of educational program. There was a positive correlation with highly statistical significant between total score of organizational justice scale and total score of creativity among the studied group. Conclusion: The study concluded that, the educational program for nurses’ leaders was effective and improved their level of justice; thereby it improved the creativity level of staff nurses at work. Recommendations: The study recommended with providing continuous training programs for nurses’ leaders and staff nurses to develop their capabilities regarding justice and creativity.

Key words:  Creativity;Educational Program; Nurses leaders; Organizational Justice; Staff Nurses.

Introduction

Organizational justice plays an important role in shaping the behavior of organizational employees (EL Banan & Etway, 2020). which employee perceptions include fair behavior in the workplace and how these perceptions affect outcomes of the organization. Also determine whether employees have been treated fairly or not in their work and how this fair treatment affects work engagement and work creative behavior (Terzi et al. 2017 and Pakpahan, et al.  2020).

Organizational justice concept firstly was presented as a punishment and reward in different organizations, and then equality rules and processes were added. And lastly human relations and interactions were added (Hany, Hassan & Badran, 2020). Organizational justice contains four dimensions of fairness mentioned as, processes as procedural justice, outcomes as distributive justice, and treatment as interactional justice which include informational and interpersonal justice (Swalhi, Zgoulli & Hofaidhllaoui., 2017 and Reginal, & Jannetta, 2021). Creativity in different healthcare settings is a complex concept which is result from relational interactions among several essential components and external circumstances in the work environment which can hinder or facilitate employees’ creative performance. Organizations should recognize the potential importance of creativity for achievement of employees’ performance high levels, which requires a supportive guidance in work environment (Abd-Elrhaman, & Ghoneimy,, 2018 and Winston, 2020)

Nurses’ leaders are able to allow the creative process to be evolved in work environment as they can encourage creativity through honest and transparent relations with staff nurses (Croft, 2021). They should provide different types of feedback cues to their staff nurses related to their creative actions, which encourage them to think creatively, and which affecting their decisions to engage creatively in the work units (Walia, 2021).

Organizational justice is considered main motivational factor for employees that directs them to exhibit a particular behavior or not. Organizational justice encourages the employee to work in healthy environment which is suitable to work creatively so, Organizational justice has a positive impact on the creative behavior at work (Akram, et al, 2020).Organizational justice has also been a strong factor leads to employee creative work behavior (Adam, Abdrabou & Mohamed, 2020)

Aim of the study:

The curent study aimed to explore The Effect of Organizational Justice Program for nurses’ leaders on the Creativity of their Staff Nurses at Work.

Research hypotheses:

1- There will be significant difference between nurses leaders’ awareness about organizational justice before and after application of educational program.

2- Organizational justice educational program will affect the creativity of staff nurses at work positively.

Subject and Methods:

 Research design:

Quasi-experimental research design was used in this study.

Setting:

This study was conducted at one of the private hospital in Cairo – Egypt.

Subjects:

First group:

Convenience sample of nurses' leaders (nursing director, nursing supervisor, head nurse, and charge nurse), working in the in-patient units (intensive care units and words) at the time of the study and having at least one year of work experience in managerial position, were included in the study  (N=48).

Second group:

Convenience sample of staff nurses working in the in-patient units (intensive care units and words) at the time of the study and having at least one year of work experience were included in the study (N=110).

Tools of data collection

Two tools were used to collect the necessary data:

Tool 1: Organizational justice scale (OJS)

This tool was developed by (Colquitt, 2001) and modified by the researcher based on literature review to measure organizational justice from the beliefs and actions of nurses' leaders in the selected clinical setting. It was consisted of three parts:

Part 1: Personal Characteristics of the Participants.

(Age, gender, hospital department, educational qualifications, years of experience, and current position)

Part 2: Knowledge about Organizational Justice Assessment Sheet.

It was a self-administered sheet, this tool was used to assess nurses’ leaders’ knowledge about organizational justice. This tool composed of 10 multiple choice questions.

Part 3: Practice observational checklist about Organizational Justice.

It was an observational checklist which was consisted of (38 items) distributed in the following four dimensions: (a) Distributive justice (8) items), (b) Procedural justice (12 items), (c) Interpersonal justice (10 items), and (d) Informational justice (8 items) to assess the nurses’ leaders level of practice regarding organizational justice.

Tool 2: Creativity questionnaire sheet

The tool will be developed by the researcher based on literature reviewto measure level of creativity of staff nurses in the clinical setting.It will consist of two parts:

Part 1: Personal Characteristics of the Participants.

(Age, gender, hospital department, educational qualifications and years of experience)

Part 2: Creativity Questionnaire Sheet.

 It was a self-administered sheet, which was consisted of (53) items distributed in seven dimensions as following: (a) Nurses’ Capabilities of Creativity (13 items), (b) Organizational Support (8 items), (c) Degree of Freedom (5 items), (d) Communication & Openness (5 items), (e) Nurses’ leaders Support (9 items), (f) Problem Solving (5 items),  (g) Constraints of Creativity in Work Settings (8items).          

Validity of the tools:

Two tools were translated into Arabic and tested by five experts specialized in nursing administration for validity and translation through an opinionnaire sheet. As a result the necessary modifications were done.

Reliability of the tools:

    Two tools were tested for their reliability using Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient, which yielded (0.81) for the organizational justice scale and (0.77) for the creativity questionnaire sheet.

Ethical considerations:

The ethical considerations of the research included that, the research approval was obtained from the ethical committee of faculty of nursing Helwan University before starting the study; the researcher assured anonymity and confidentiality of the collected data, which was used by the hem for the purpose scientific research. The nurses’ leaders and staff nurses were informed that they had the freedom to choose to participate or not in the study. Also, they have the right to withdraw from the study at any time; ethics, values, culture and beliefs were respected; and study subjects were informed about research purposes.

Fieldwork

The actual fieldwork started at the beginning of May 2021 and was completed by beginning of December 2021. The researcher met the nursing director and the HR manager to explain the aim of the study to gain their approval on data collection. The current study carried out on five phases:

Assessment phase

1-       Assess nurses leaders’ awareness about Organizational justice by Organizational justice scale before providing educational program sessions.

2-       Assess staff nurses level of creativity by creativity questionnaire sheet before providing educational program sessions.

Designing phase

The researcher designed educational program about organizational justice for nurses’ leaders based on reviewing the current literatures and results of assessment. It included topics such as organizational justice definition, benefits principals, process, ways, application and effect of organizational justice in addition to educational activities to foster understanding.

Implementation phase

1- The researcher implemented educational program sessions with nurses’ leaders using various teaching methods such as (lecturers, group discussion, and brain storming), using media as audio visual materials such as (power point, flip chart, and white board), and using educational activities as scenarios. Using tablet device to show presentations and handout booklets were distributed to all participated nurses’ leaders.

2- The researcher used the evaluation methods during educational sessions asparticipation during session, discussion during sessions, and feedback after session.

3-Educational sessions were done 2days /week and lasted for 4 weeks. Every day includes 3 sessions with the same title. Every session lasts for 2 hours in one unit and dividing participants into small groups to facilitate learning process and participation as well as not to hinder the daily work activities.

Evaluation phase

1-                      Reassess nurses leaders’ awareness about Organizational justice by Organizational justice scale after providing educational program sessions.

2-                      Reassess staff nurses level of creativity after providing educational program sessions by 4 months.

3-                      Many suggestions were reported during data collection and program.

Follow up phase

Follow up was done after application of Organizational justice program by 3 months.

• Assess nurses leaders’ awareness about Organizational justice.
• Assess staff nurses level of creativity.

Results

Regarding the nurse’s leaders age; more than three quarters (81.3%) of them were ranged between 30- + SD= 33.37+ 3.52). while considering gender, about two thirds of them (66.7%) were male with male to female ratio=2:1. Moreover, the majority of them (97.9%) & (72.9%) were bachelor degree, worked in ICUs departments respectively. Additionally, half of studied nurse’s leaders (50 %) had years of experience ranged between 5- + SD=5.1 + 2.4) and about two thirds of them (62.5%) were charge nurses. In addition to presence of difference between observed and expected values with a statistical significant difference at P ≤ 0.05. (Table 1)

   According to staff nurses’ age; more than half (50.9%) of their age is ranged between 20- + SD= (30.1 + 2.9). while considering gender, more than two thirds (70%) were male with male to female ratio=2.3:1. Moreover, (93.6%) & (70.9%) respectively, were bachelor degree, worked in ICUs departments. Additionally, more than two thirds of them (72.8 %) had years of experience ranged between 5- + SD= 5.9+ 2.3).In addition to presence of difference between observed and expected values with a statistical significant difference at P ≤ 0.05regarding to gender, nursing qualifications, hospital department & years of experience. (Table 2)

Nurses’ leaders had low level of knowledge regarding organizational justice before educational program about organizational justice while the majority of them had high level of knowledge after and follow up the program    (Figure 1).

Nurses’ leaders had higher level of organizational justice practice after implementation of educational program than before (Figure 2).

The studied staff nurses had higher level of creativity after implementation of educational program for nurses’ managers than before (Figure 3).

There was a highly statistical significant positive correlation between total score of organizational justice scale and total score of creativity among the studied groups (Figure 4).

 Table (1): Percent distribution of the studied nurse’s managers personal characteristics (N=48).

 (*): statistically significant at P ≤ 0.05                     (**): highly statistically significant at p≤ 0.001

Table (2): Percent distribution of the studied staff nurses personal characteristics (n=110)

(*): statistically significant at P ≤ 0.05                    (**): highly statistically significant at p≤ 0.001

Figure (1): Total mean of knowledge scores regarding organizational justice during pre, post & follow up among the studied nurses’ leaders (n=48).

Figure (2): Totalmean scores of organizational justice practice during pre, post & follow up among the studied nurses’ leaders (n=48).

Figure (3): Total mean score of creativity during pre, post & follow up among the staff nurses (n=110).

Figure (4): Correlation between cumulative total score of organizational justice scale and cumulative total score of creativity.