Moderating effect of affective commitment on the relationship between personality traits, job satisfaction and customer-oriented behavior among nurses

Abstract

Rapid growth of the healthcare industry and existence of a more educated population have resulted in higher demand and expectation of the nursing care services. Healthcare providers need to meet the demand and expectation by introducing customer-oriented behavior among nurses. Previous studies on customer-oriented behavior have been inconclusive and almost non-existence in Malaysian public hospitals. Therefore, this study examined the relationship between personality traits, job satisfaction and customer-oriented behavior and the moderating effect of affective commitment on these relationships. Trait theory, affective theory of social exchange and self-determination theory were used to explain the study?s framework. The population of this study were nurses from Kuala Lumpur Hospital, Sultanah Aminah Hospital and Pulau Pinang Hospital. Data was from 361 usable self-administrated questionnaires, and were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) for descriptive analysis and hierarchical multiple regression. The findings revealed that the level of nurses? customer-oriented behavior was generally high with a mean of 4.23. There were significant differences in the level of customer-oriented behavior based on gender and age groups of the nurses. Multiple regression analysis showed that customer-oriented behavior was significantly and positively related to openness to experience, extraversion, agreeableness and job satisfaction. Affective commitment was found to be a quasi moderator which had a dual role of direct and interaction effects on customer-oriented behavior. The findings can assist healthcare service providers use the personality traits and demographic factors as the basis to identify nurses? customer-oriented behavior during recruitment process. Additionally, the providers can initiate programs that motivate nurses in sharing new ideas to generate a cohesive nursing workforce with job satisfaction and high commitment in exhibiting customer-oriented behavior. Policy makers can include customer-oriented behavior in the key performance indicator (KPI) during performance appraisal. Several directions were also drawn for future studies such as conducting a comparative study of nurses? customer-oriented behavior in other healthcare centers that are equally important such as public clinics, community clinics and dental clinics or other public service sectors.