Leveraging on Motivation to Retain Employees: The Role of Psychological Contract

Abstract

The migration of nurses in pursuit of ‘greener pastures’ has been an issue of great concern and a threat to the health sector across the globe, especially the developing nations. Interventions by successive Ghanaian governments to stem the tide have failed because issues surrounding transfer policies, family reunion and career choice trajectories have not been satisfactorily addressed. This empirical study was aimed at identifying the missing links in the motivational interventions in order to proffer suggestions on specific support systems to retain nurses. The study adopted a cross-sectional design under the quantitative methodology to achieve the objective of the study. A questionnaire was used as an instrument to collect primary data from a sample size (n) of 350 nurses from five Mission Hospitals in Bono East Region of Ghana. The data was analyzed using SmartPLS3 structural equation modeling (SEM). The findings revealed that psychological contract plays an important role in stay-or-quit decision of nurses because management’s effort at motivating staff is still at odds with the critical elements of nurses’ motivational content.