The work of nurses at the secondary and tertiary levels of the healthcare system takes place in a demanding work environment, in which relationships among employees, leadership style, opportunities for professional development, and autonomy at work play an important role. The purpose of the master's thesis was to examine the influence of organizational climate on job satisfaction and work engagement among nurses, and to test the role of job satisfaction in the relationship between organizational climate and work engagement.
The research was based on an online survey questionnaire aimed at nurses employed at the secondary and tertiary levels of the healthcare system in Slovenia. Organizational climate was measured using the Rao and Abraham questionnaire, job satisfaction using the MSQ-20, and work engagement using the UWES-17. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, factor analysis, and regression and mediation analysis.
The results showed that all four identified dimensions of organizational climate had a statistically significant effect on job satisfaction, with autonomy, openness, and interpersonal relations having the strongest influence. Job satisfaction proved to be an important factor in work engagement and mediated the effect of all dimensions of organizational climate on engagement. Organizational climate and job satisfaction explained vigor and dedication better than absorption. A comparison with a Polish study showed higher job satisfaction in the Slovenian sample.
The practical contribution of the study lies in identifying specific areas of organizational climate associated with nurses’ job satisfaction and work engagement, particularly autonomy, openness and interpersonal relationships, development and professional support, trust and cooperation, and objectivity. The study also contributes through the empirical testing of the proposed conceptual model linking organizational climate, job satisfaction, and nurses’ work engagement, as well as through the application and evaluation of measurement scales in the examined nursing context. The findings enable healthcare institutions to target workplace interventions more specifically toward areas associated with higher levels of nurses’ job satisfaction and work engagement.
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