The effect of perceived organizational justice on workplace deviant behavior of new nurses: the role of emotional labor and psychological capital.

BACKGROUND: New nurses are prone to workplace deviant behavior in the constrained hospital environment, which will not only directly affect the safety of patients, but also reduce the work efficiency of nurses and bring negative results to the hospital. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between perceived organizational justice, emotional labor, psychological capital, and workplace deviant behavior of new nurses.

METHODS: A cross-sectional study was used in this study. A survey was conducted in 5 hospitals in Henan Province, Chain from February to April 2023. The sample size was 546. The questionnaire included general information, perceived organizational justice scale, emotional labor scale, psychological capital scale, and workplace deviant behavior scale. SPSS 26.0 and PROCESS Macro were used for data analysis. PROCESS Model 4 and Model 14 were used to verify the model.

RESULTS: This study displays that perceived organizational justice was negatively correlated with emotional labor and workplace deviant behavior, and emotional labor was positively correlated with workplace deviant behavior. Meanwhile, emotional labor plays a partial mediating role between perceived organizational justice and workplace deviant behavior, accounting for 32.7% of the total effect. Moreover, the path of emotional labor on workplace deviant behavior is moderated by psychological capital.

CONCLUSION: This study further understood the workplace deviant behavior of new nurses, and provided a new perspective for solving this problem. Nurse managers can reduce workplace deviant behavior by enhancing the perceived organizational justice and psychological capital of new nurses and improving emotional labor.