An analysis of the relationships among job satisfaction, organizational trust, and organizational commitment in an acute care hospital

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship among specific job attitudes held by a cross section of employees of an acute care hospital, and to understand and communicate how these attitudes and their interrelationships within the hospital may strengthen the strategic planning effort of hospital leadership in relation to human resources management. Increasing awareness of the issues and conducting assessments related to employees' perceptions of job satisfaction, organizational trust, and organizational commitment may provide hospital management valuable insight as to how well employees feel they "fit" in a hospital organization and whether they are satisfied to the extent that they plan to remain in their jobs.; Three research instruments were administered to a sample of 120 individuals from a single hospital. These surveys were the Job Satisfaction Survey (Spector, 1985); the Organizational Trust Inventory (Cummings & Bromiley, 1996); and the Employee Commitment Scales (Meyer & Allen, 1991).; A moderately strong to strong positive correlation was found to exist among each of the variables, with the exception being the relationships between continuance commitment and job satisfaction and between continuance commitment and organizational trust. Therefore, the null hypothesis was rejected for five of the seven research hypotheses.; The issue of continuance commitment in relation to job satisfaction and organizational trust may reflect an attitude among the employees in the sample that there are other job alternatives available in the vicinity. Therefore, the type of commitment based on the cost that employees place on leaving the organization, which is often associated with low perceived alternatives and high personal sacrifice, does not appear to be a significant factor in this case. It seems more likely that their commitment to the organization is based on other values, such as good pay, close kinship with their coworkers, good working relationships with supervisors and management, and a satisfactory job "fit." The opportunity exists for further research among other hospitals toward developing a broader sense of how these particular variables are related and how the research results might be best applied toward the organization's overall performance improvement and strategic planning efforts.