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This study aims to investigate the impact of job rotation on employee performance and explores the mediating role of human resources (HR) strategy and training effectiveness on this relationship, within the petrochemical industry, which represents a highly specialist and hazardous industrial context.

Data was collected through a questionnaire which was distributed among the experts working in an Iranian petrochemical organization. Previously validated scales were used to measure job rotation, employee performance, HR strategy and training effectiveness, and partial least squares structural equation modeling was used for hypothesis testing.

The research findings indicated that job rotation had a negative effect on employee performance, while training effectiveness and HR strategy positively mediated the relationship between job rotation and employee performance. This highlights the importance of ensuring effective training and a HR strategy to support job rotation of skilled and specialist employees.

Managers of employees in specialist and hazardous industries, such as petrochemical workers, interested in job rotation to support employee career development, should be mindful of potential negative implications on employee performance. To support and improve employee performance, job rotation should be considered alongside HR strategy and training.

Previous research has largely focused on the value of job rotation to develop managers’ organizational understanding and to reduce injury within blue-collar work, which has led to a paucity of research into job rotation within highly skilled and specialist industrial roles. It is highlighted within the literature that it remains unclear what supports effective job rotation. This study addresses this lacuna by investigating how job rotation affects employee performance in a highly skilled and specialized industry and how strategy and training effectiveness mediate this effect.

This study aimed to determine the relationship between quality of nurse work life (QNWL) and caring behaviors among emergency nurses.

In this cross-sectional study, a total of 168 emergency nurses were selected from eight hospitals in the metropolitan of Tabriz, East Azerbaijan Province, Iran. Data were collected in the first six months of 2018 by Brooks' QNWL questionnaire and Wolf's Caring Behaviors Inventory. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to analyze the data.

The overall QNWL scores were low to moderate. The highest scores were related to the work design and home/ life dimensions. Nurses' care behaviors were focused on the physical aspect of care, so that the highest scores for dimensions of caring behaviors belonged to the professional knowledge and skill followed by the attentiveness to the others' experience and the lowest belonged to the positive connectedness. The results of the multiple linear regression analysis showed that the model with the three variables of work context, male gender, and age group 51–60 years was significant.

This study used cross-sectional data for analysis, which limits the ability to establish causality. It is therefore suggested that future studies should use longitudinal designs to strengthen the acceptability of causality. Longitudinal designs will also help to assess changes of QNWL within units of observation over time. Moreover, this study was conducted in the educational treatment centers of Tabriz. Therefore, further studies should be carried out on nurses in the ED of East Azerbaijan and the northwestern provinces of Iran to allow generalization of the research results concerning macro-policymaking to improve the QNWL of these nurses and their caring behaviors.

For providing high quality care to patients, it is necessary to pay more attention to the communication and emotional aspects of patient care. Nurses' QWL, especially in the work context dimension, should be enhanced to improve the caring behaviors of nurses.

Also considering that the work world dimension had the lowest score in QNWL, policymakers' efforts should continue for changing public attitudes toward the nursing profession and balancing the nurses' income based on their performance in the healthcare system to maintain the social prestige of the profession among the community. The media, political and public support can play a pivotal role in improving the image of nursing in society, increasing motivation among Iranian nurses and promoting the QNWL, which will result in higher levels of quality of care as well as greater patient satisfaction.

The results of this study show a positive correlation between the work context and caring behaviors and suggest that the use of strategies for improving the features of work context may be able to improve nurses' caring behaviors. In order to provide holistic care for our patients, we need changes in the conditions and work context of nurses so that nurses can like the physical aspect of care, pay attention to its psychological aspect.