Impact of caring leadership on nurses’ work engagement: examining the chain mediating effect of calling and affective organization commitment

Abstract Background Previous studies have established a positive link between nurse managers’ caring leadership and nurses’ work engagement, but the processes and conditions through which this leadership style influences positive work behaviors remain largely unexplored. To address this gap and contribute to the existing body of knowledge, we developed a chain-mediated effects model to elucidate the impact of caring leadership on nurses’ work engagement and the underlying mechanisms. In this model, we identified professional mission and affective organizational commitment as the mediating variables, offering a novel perspective on the relationship between caring leadership and work engagement. Methods A robust multi-center and large-sample cross-sectional survey was conducted, involving 2502 first-line nurses from six general tertiary hospitals across the eastern, central, and western regions of China. The data collection instruments included a comprehensive questionnaire covering demographic information, the caring leadership scale, the Chinese calling scale, the affective organizational commitment scale, and the Utrecht work engagement scale. Data were meticulously screened and analyzed, employing descriptive analysis to summarize the demographic information, correlation analysis to test the relationship among the variables, stepwise regression analysis to explore the mediating role of calling and affective organization commitment, and the bootstrap method to test the chain mediating effect. This rigorous methodology not only ensures the reliability and validity of research findings but also instills confidence in the robustness of this research. Results The results indicated a positive relationship among caring leadership, calling, affective organizational commitment, and nurses’ work engagement (p