Correlation Among Temporal Social Comparison, Development Motivation, and Intelligence Knowledge Sharing in Nursing Staff: A Cross-Sectional Study in China.

Background: Because of demographic changes, the average age of professional nurses in the workplace has been on the rise. Fully developing the potential of older nurses to work in today's technology-intensive healthcare environments is critical to promoting and achieving the sustainable development of hospitals.

Purpose: This study was designed to explore the relationships among temporal social comparison, development motivation, and knowledge sharing in nurses and to explore the moderating effect of age-inclusive human resource (HR) practices on the relationship between temporal social comparison and knowledge sharing.

Methods: A cross-sectional, descriptive, correlational research design and purposive sampling were used in this study. Nursing staff who had worked for more than 6 months at one of several hospitals in central China were recruited as participants. Data on demographic characteristics, temporal social comparison, development motivation, age-inclusive human resource practices, and intelligence knowledge sharing from 328 participants were collected using a structured questionnaire and subsequently analyzed.

Results: The correlation analysis showed age-inclusive HR practices to correlate negatively with unfavorable temporary social comparisons with older nurses (r = -.667, p < .01), development motivation (r = -.685, p < .01), and intergenerational digital knowledge sharing between younger nurses and older nurses (r = -.750, p < .01). In addition, unfavorable temporal social comparisons with older nurses was found to correlate positively with both development motivation (r = .686, p < .01) and intergenerational digital knowledge sharing between younger nurses and older nurses (r = .563, p < .01), whereas intergenerational digital knowledge sharing between younger nurses and older nurses was found to correlate positively with development motivation (r = .667, p < .01).

Conclusions/implications for practice: The findings of this study suggest unfavorable temporal social comparisons increase development motivation in younger nurses, which increases their sharing of digital intelligence knowledge with older nurses. Also, the findings support a facilitative effect of age-inclusive HR practices on the relationship between temporal social comparisons and development motivation.