Effect of Nurses’ Job Demands and

Job Resources on Work Engagement based

on JDR model

Jeong-Won, Han

College of Nursing, Kosin University, Amnam-dong, Seo-gu,

Busan, South Korea

Corresponding Author: hjw0721@kosin.ac.kr

Abstract. This study investigated the relationships between nurses’ job

demand, job resource, emotional labor, and work engagement. Data obtained

from completed questionnaires were analyzed using SPSS Windows 18.0 and

AMOS 16.0. Job resources did not affect surface acting in emotional labor, job

demand directly affected surface acting in emotional labor. Job resources

directly affected deep acting in emotional labor. Deep acting in nurses’

emotional labor directly affected work engagement. However, surface acting

did not. Job resource richness significantly affected work engagement with

emotional labor as a mediator, whereas job demand did not This has important

implications in that it provides baseline data for a work engagement prediction

model that hospital managers can use for effective human resource management

of nursing staff.

Keywords: Job, demand, resource, engagement

1 Introduction

Hospitals are organizations that include a diverse professional workforce, and nurses

play a central role in satisfying patients and thus are requested to provide high-quality

services to patients by the hospitals [1]. However, nurses experiencing work burnout

and a decrease in work engagement are leaving hospitals due to job stress from first-

hand contact with patients suffering from disease and the demands of their guardians

[2]. High nurse turnover rates account for the largest proportion of hospital

organizational issues—including insufficient nursing staff and lower productivity—

impeding hospital development. Therefore, hospital managers are interested in

improving their work engagement to reduce turnover intention [3].

Work engagement is based on a facilitating behavioral system in which a worker

behaves actively to directly experience the pleasures and rewards and, as a result,

performs creatively at work, and experiences positive outcomes [4]. The job

demands-resources model (JDR) [5] has been proposed to explain the generation and

outcomes of work engagement in an integrated manner. This model proposes that

various job demands and resources in the job environment affect work engagement

and also indirectly affect health and turnover. Although job demands do not always

Advanced Science and Technology Letters Vol.128 (Healthcare and Nursing 2016), pp.14-17

http://dx.doi.org/10.14257/astl.2016.128.03

ISSN: 2287-1233 ASTL Copyright © 2016 SERSC

have negative effects on workers, excessive job demands can be a cause of job stress,

as they often accompany irredeemable negative responses [6]. In contrast, job

resources play a functional role in achieving a performance goal, and stimulate the

growth, learning, and development of an individual [7], help them deal with excessive

job demands, and are essential factors in executing tasks [8]. However, the JDR

proposed has a limitation in that it omits the process by which diverse job demands

and job resources given in a job environment progress to work burnout and work

engagement [9]. In particular, clinical nurses commonly experience work burnout

during the course of interacting with patients and their guardians, and the emotional

labor of controlling their emotions to accommodate the sensitive responses of patients

and expectations of the organization; i.e., a profit, become the major cause of work

burnout. Therefore, the emotional labor of nurses does not necessarily cause negative

work burnout but can lead to either negative work burnout or positive work

engagement, depending on the emotional labor strategy under the given

circumstances.

The purpose of this study was to develop a hypothetical model to explain nurses’

job burnout and job engagement and to examine the mediating effect of emotional

labor in the relationship between nurses’ job demands, job resources, and job

engagement, by testing the goodness of fit of actual data.

2 Methods

Convenience sampling was used for this study. Participants comprised 360 consenting

nurses, working in six general hospitals located in Seoul. SPSS Windows 18.0 (SPSS

Korea data solution Inc.) and AMOS 7.0 (SPSS Korea data solution Inc.) were used

for data analyses. This study analyzed participants’ demographic characteristics using

SPSS Windows 18.0. To verify convergent validity, factor loading, squared multiple

correlation (SMC), standardized residual covariance (SRC), construct reliability (CR),

and average variance extracted (AVE) were used. Discriminant validity aims at

verifying whether factors are independent of one another; in this study we used Root

(√) values of correlation coefficients and AVE values. Since this study had high-

dimensional factors, primary and secondary factor analyses were conducted using

higher-order factor analysis. In order to verify the model’s goodness of fit, chi-square,

chi-square/degrees of freedom (≤3.00), adjusted goodness of fit index (AGFI ≥0.90),

goodness of fit index (GFI ≥0.90), comparative fit index (CFI ≥0.90), root mean

square residual (RMRS ≤0.08), root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA

≤0.08), and normed fit index (NFI ≥0.90) were used.

3 Results

Goodness of fit of the study model was χ2

= 378.78, p < 0.001, χ2/df = 2.77, GFI =

0.93, AGFI = 0.89, NFI = 0.92, CFI = 0.94, and RMSEA = 0.06. This study examined

the direct, indirect, and total effects of nurse job demands and job resources on work

engagement, with surface acting and deep acting as mediating variables. The

Advanced Science and Technology Letters Vol.128 (Healthcare and Nursing 2016)

Copyright © 2016 SERSC 15

bootstrapping method was used to test the significance of the indirect effect. No

significant correlation was found between job demand and job resources. While job

resources did not affect surface acting in emotional labor, job demand directly

affected (γ = 0.47, p = 0.004) surface acting in emotional labor, and explained 18% of

surface acting in emotional labor. Additionally, job resources directly affected (γ =

0.48, p = 0.003) deep acting in emotional labor, and explained 26% of deep acting in

emotional labor. Deep acting in nurses’ emotional labor directly affected work

engagement (β = 0.65, p = 0.003); however, surface acting did not. Moreover, job

resource richness significantly affected work engagement (β = 0.34, p = 0.004) with

emotional labor as a mediator, whereas job demand did not. Hence, the direct effect of

deep acting of emotional labor and the indirect effect of job resources explained 45%

of work engagement (Table 1).

4 Discussion

Job demand on nurses was directly positively related to surface acting in emotional

labor, whereas nurses’ job resource richness was directly positively related to deep

acting in emotional labor. This result corresponded with this of study by Song and Liu

[11] regarding service representatives at call centers. In those studies, job demand was

significantly directly positively related to surface acting in emotional labor, and job

resource richness was significantly directly positively related to deep acting in

emotional labor, indicating that job resource richness positively motivates job

performance. Nurses perform their work in the face of undue demands from patients

and their organization by acting differently than would be dictated by their real

emotions because they are employed in a service industry. And the direct effect of

deep acting of emotional labor and the indirect effect of job resources with deep

acting of emotional labor as a mediator. This result was confirmed by Yi et al. [9],

who reported that the emotional labor strategy plays a mediating role in the JDR

regarding work engagement in nurses. That is, deep acting of emotional labor acted as

an important mediating variable in boosting work engagement. Hence, to improve the

quality of nurse services, hospital management must take advantage of education and

other programs that can have a direct effect on work engagement, in addition to

providing sufficient job resources and reducing excessive job demands.

5 Conclusion

This study was conducted to establish a model for an integrated analysis of the

relationships among job demands and resources, work engagement, and the mediating

effect of emotional labor in clinical nurses, and to verify the relationships among

these factors. Job demands was positively related to surface acting of emotional labor.

Job resources was positively related to deep acting of emotional labor. And job

resources indirectly positively affected work engagement through deep acting of

emotional labor as the mediator, demonstrating emotional labor to be a mediating

variable.

Advanced Science and Technology Letters Vol.128 (Healthcare and Nursing 2016)

16 Copyright © 2016 SERSC

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