African American nurse faculty satisfaction and scholarly productivity at predominantly white and historically black colleges and universities.

The aim of this study was to examine faculty satisfaction and the relationships among selected elements of African American women nurse faculty productivity at two types of institutions: predominantly white (PWCUs) and historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Organizational Culture Theory was used as the conceptual framework to provide the basis to explore the extent of productivity and levels of satisfaction among the study participants. Satisfaction was measured using a six-point Likert attitudinal scale. Scholarly Productivity was measured as the extent of published/submitted works (authorship), number and dollar amounts of grant submissions (grantsmanship) and elected/appointed positions held in professional organizations (leadership). Consistent with previous research studies of minority faculty in other disciplines, the current study found that the majority of African American women nurse faculty tended not to hold senior professorial rank, administrative positions, or tenure status. When comparisons were made between HBCU and PWCU faculty, however, a higher percentage of HBCU faculty reported holding Deanships or program coordinator positions and, on average, had slightly larger dollar amounts for funded grant awards and held significantly more leadership positions in professional nursing organizations. The aggregated data findings of this study did not support a strong relationship between selected elements of satisfaction with the academic institution's organizational culture and the scholarly productivity of African American women nurse faculty teaching at HBCUs and PWCUs. However, when the data were disaggregated by type school, moderately significant differences between HBCU and PWCU faculty were found, such that along several dimensions of the constructs of organizational culture the levels of dissatisfaction among PWCU faculty significantly skewed the overall data findings. In general, while PWCU faculty demonstrated higher levels of authorship, reported larger salaries, and held more tenured positions when compared with HBCU faculty, PWCU respondents tended to be significantly less satisfied with the leadership, environment, and socialization processes of their respective collegiate schools of nursing than were their HBCU counterparts. Among HBCU faculty the extent of productivity positively correlated with satisfaction for three of the six dimensions of organizational culture.