Search results

This article examines principals' social work environment in the context of a series of school reforms inspired by new public management. With the point of departure in Job Demands and Resources, we put forward the following overall research question: which job demands and job resources are related to principals' job satisfaction? The article has a mixed methods approach, combining material from questionnaires (466 participants) and interviews (15 participants). The results of the questionnaire indicate that job resources such as role clarity, influence, meaningfulness, and social community with senior managers were related to job satisfaction, while lacking job resources (influence, social community with senior managers) and experiencing role conflicts were associated with a higher intention to leave the profession. The interviews provide a more in-depth understanding of the shift of institutional logics within the school sector, enforcing boundaries between principals' professional and managerial roles in accordance with New Public Managerial Ideas. The separation between profession and management contributes to principals' organisational and social work environments being in a blind spot. This is not only a problem for the principals, but also a risk factor for the organisations themselves, as stress and ill-health among leaders tend to affect the entire organisation.

Healthy work environments in the nursing academic setting are essential for the recruitment and retention of faculty; they also serve to promote excellence in nursing education. Although the early efforts addressing healthy work environments focused on the clinical practice setting, more recent efforts have also considered the work environment in academic settings. The National League for Nursing has focused on work environments in academia and has published the Healthful Work Environment Tool Kit© that can be used by applicants for faculty positions, current faculty members, and nurse administrators to assess an academic work environment. The tool kit addresses the following nine work-related areas: salaries, benefits, workload, collegial environment, role preparation and professional development, scholarship, institutional support, marketing and recognition, and leadership. These areas are used to frame the discussion of how nursing faculty and administrators can work together to assess and enhance the health of nursing academic workplaces.