The adoption of high involvement work practices in Canadian nursing homes

Purpose - The objective of the research is to assess the degree of adoption of high-involvement nursing work practices in long-term care organizations. It seeks to determine the organizational and workplace factors that are associated with the uptake adoption of ten selected human resource high-involvement employee work practices.Design methodology approach - A survey questionnaire was sent to 300 long-term care organizations (nursing homes) in western Canada. Results from 125 nursing home establishments (43 percent response rate) are reported herein.Findings - Of the ten high-involvement nursing work practices examined, employee suggestion and recognition systems are the most widely adopted by homes in the sample, while shared governance and incentive merit-base pay are used by a small minority of establishments.Practical implications - The uptake of high-involvement nursing work practices is not adopted in a haphazard fashion. Their uptake is variously associated with a number of establishment and workplace factors, including the presence of a supportive and enabling workplace culture.Originality value - The objective of this research is to examine the extent and degree of adoption of high involvement work practices in a sample of long-term care establishments operating in the four provinces of western Canada.