CHAPTER 2: How Can Mentors Help Retain Nurses? Perspectives of Social Capital
2.2.4 Self‐efficacy, Outcome Expectations and Career Interest
Willingness to mentor represents a mentor's motivation to support a mentee (Pullins et al., 1996). Nurses’ support for the mentees could include sharing professional experiences, including how these mentors overcame workplaces challenges. Sharing experiences reminds mentors of exemplary past
performances, which reinforces the mentors’ self‐confidence. Self‐confidence is the core of self‐efficacy (Lent et al., 2015); hence, we hypothesise a positive link between willingness to mentor and self‐efficacy among nurse mentors.
A mentee's willingness to be mentored is the readiness to receive formal or informal instruction from a mentor (Pullins et al., 1996). In nursing, readiness to receive instruction prepares mentees to observe and imitate the professional practice of their mentors, that is
vicarious learning (Lent et al., 1994). Vicarious learning helps mentees achieve a desired level of performance in an efficient manner. This instills confidence
in mentees and is core to self‐efficacy (Lent et al., 2015). Hence, we hypothesise:
H2a: Willingness to mentor is positively related to self‐efficacy in mentors.
H2b: Willingness to be mentored is positively related to self‐efficacy in mentees.
Willingness to mentor represents a mentor's motivation to help improve the skills and knowledge of a mentee (Pullins et al., 1996). Improved skills and knowledge facilitate enhanced workplace performance. As nursing mentorships are formally recorded, mentees’ successes imply that the mentors are successful in mentoring. This benefits both the organisation (which retains two
employees), and the mentor, who may be rewarded intrinsically or extrinsically (through recognition, promotions or salary increases), leading mentors to
expect greater outcomes (Cunningham, Bruening, Sartore, Sagas, & Fink, 2005), supporting a positive link between willingness to mentor and outcome expectations among mentors.
Mentees’ willingness to be mentored is their readiness to acquire skills and knowledge from mentors (Pullins et al., 1996). In nursing, skills and knowledge acquisition should significantly improve mentees’ performance. Improved performance also enhances mentees’ expectations of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards (e.g., salary increases and promotions), that is, enhanced outcome expectations (Cunningham et al., 2005). Therefore, we hypothesise:
H3a: Willingness to mentor is positively related to outcome expectations in mentors.
H3b: Willingness to be mentored is positively related to outcome expectations in mentees.
Self‐efficacy is the belief in one's capability to achieve success (Lent et al.,
2015). Perceived capabilities (if accurate) are realized through exemplary performance, which further contributes to a positive perception of one's
capabilities. Positive feedback reinforces confidence in one's capabilities, and the willingness to engage in the activity (Bandura, 1986). Hence, positive self‐efficacy should create a sustained interest in a nursing career, which is defined as career interest (Lent et al., 2015). Therefore, we hypothesise:
H4: Self‐efficacy is positively related to career interest.
Self‐efficacy represents the belief in one's capability to succeed in a career (Lent et al., 2015). Nurses with high self‐efficacy are more likely to expect to perform (and actually perform) their workplace tasks successfully. Over time, positive performance should increase one's salary, create promotion
opportunities and generate other rewards such as job satisfaction. Expectation of these rewards is an outcome expectation (Cunningham et al., 2005).
Therefore, we hypothesise:
H5: Self‐efficacy is positively related to outcome expectations.
Individuals who experience success in an endeavour are more likely to find that endeavour rewarding and are likely to undertake similar endeavours in the future (Bandura, 1986). If a nurse experiences both workplace success and outcome expectations based on that success, that nurse may be more motivated to continue the chosen area of practice (Cunningham et al., 2005). Thus, nurses with higher outcome expectations are more likely to be retained in the
profession. An interest in, or willingness to, remain in a profession is defined as career interest (Thungjaroenkul et al., 2016). Hence, we hypothesise:
H6: Outcome expectations are positively related to career interest.
Hypotheses 4–6 have been empirically examined among nursing students
(Thungjaroenkul et al., 2016). However, H4–H6 have not been thoroughly vetted among practicing nurses. Given their relevance to SCCT, and the paucity of research testing these hypotheses among practicing nurses, we retain these hypotheses in our study.
2.2.5 Intention to Leave
Nurses’ professional turnover intentions are of vital importance to nurse managers and health policymakers (Chang et al., 2015). Mitigating professional turnover intentions are an important first step in ameliorating the shortage of nurses in many countries, which is, in turn, critical in ensuring population health (Brunetto & Teo, 2013).
Career interest represents nurses’ interests to continue working in the profession (Thungjaroenkul et al., 2016). A sustained interest in the profession simultaneously suggests a reduced professional turnover intention, posing a negative link between career interest and professional turnover intention. This relationship stems directly from SCCT, which posits that career interest results in outstanding job performance (Lent et al., 1994), which should increase the value of these nurses to others in the organisation (e.g., supervisors, peers) and to their patients. Organisations likely take steps to retain them within the
organisation, further reducing these nurses’ professional turnover intentions.
Hence, we hypothesise:
H7: Career interest is negatively related to professional turnover intentions.
Figure 2.1 illustrates the research framework. This framework augments the propositions of SCCT (i.e., H4, H5 and H6) with novel antecedents - rapport and willingness to mentor/be mentored – through their impacts on self‐efficacy and outcome expectations.
Figure 2.1: Research Framework
Note. The “Willingness to Mentor/Be Mentored” denotes “Willingness to Mentor” for nursing mentors and “Willingness to be Mentored” for nursing mentees. Dotted lines denote the links that are pertaining to control variables and thus not hypothesized.