Abstract

Although nursing leadership roles have been greatly transformed as a result of dramatic changes within healthcare over the past decade, there is little research on the nature of nurse manager work life in current work environments. The purpose of this study was to test a theoretical model derived from Kanter's theory of organizational empowerment: linking nurse managers' perceptions of structural and psychological empowerment to burnout, job satisfaction and physical and mental health. A descriptive, correlational design was used in a sample of 286 first-line (n=202) and middle-level (n=84) hospital-based nurse managers obtained from a provincial registry.