The impact of NPM on the stress level of Australian nurses

Abstract

This paper examines the links between the antecedents of workplace stress (social climate, communication practices and relative pay) and public sector nurses' perception of workplace stress. These antecedents of stress have been specifically chosen based on previous research identifying how the implementation of New Public sector Management has affected the quality of organisational management and communication factors. The findings from the regression analysis suggest that nurses' level of satisfaction with organisational factors affected by NPM accounted collectively for 11.6% of the variance of their perception of workplace stress. The findings also demonstrated that the specific individual factors were not significantly related to perceptions of workplace stress and it seems that no one organisational factor is dominant. Management practices therefore must be aligned with strengthening these organisational factors generally if perceptions of workplace stress are to be managed and in turn, organisational effectiveness is to be optimised.