The purpose of this study was to investigate the determinants of job satisfaction of hospital nurses. The focus was on work rewards. A causal model of job satisfaction of hospital nurses was constructed based on situational perspectives.

The sample for this study consisted of 505 nurses from 2 general hospitals located in Seoul and Kyeonggi Province, Korea. Data were collected with self-administrated questionnaires and analyzed by hierarchical multiple regression.

All variables except workload were positively correlated with job satisfaction. It was found that three task reward variables (workload, meaning, and participation), two organizational reward variables (security and promotional chances) and one social reward variable (family support) had significant influence on nurses' job satisfaction. The explained variance for job satisfaction was 41.4%. The data further indicate that task rewards were the most significant determinants of nurse job satisfaction.

Theses findings provide strong empirical evidence for importance of task, organizational and social reward variables in explaining job satisfaction of nurses. The model used for this study will be useful for predicting nurse job satisfaction.