Abstract
Background: This study explores the association between physical therapist satisfaction in a rehabilitation private practice and perceptions of altruism and social responsibility in the workplace. Small private, for-profit businesses like therapy practices often embrace altruistic values and socially responsible cultures driven by close stakeholder relationships. Alignment between business culture and personal values is a stronger predictor of workplace and career satisfaction. Employees who perceive value alignment report higher job satisfaction and relatedness. Prosocial cultures, rich in altruism and social responsibility, foster job fit and reduce dissatisfaction and turnover. Physical therapy's core values, including altruism and social responsibility, are integral to clinical practice. This study aims to explore whether these values influence employee job satisfaction. Methods: Thirty-three employees from a large rehabilitation private practice in West Georgia completed a survey comprising the societal outreach subsection of the Professionalism in Physical Therapy: Core Values Self-Assessment tool, along with sections assessing employee-environment fit and job satisfaction. Participants included physical therapists, assistants, and supervisors. Survey reliability was validated using Cronbach's Alpha and Spearman's Rho correlation to analyze associations between altruism and social responsibility values, employee-environment fit, and job satisfaction. Results: Significant Spearman Rho associations were found across all cohorts. Promoting cultural competence correlated positively with intent-to-stay while providing therapy to underserved populations inversely correlated with job satisfaction. For supervisors, aligning social policy with patient/client interests is associated positively with leadership style and intent-to-stay. Among employees, associations included promoting community activism, aligning with company values, and ensuring social policies match patient/client interests. Conclusion: Combining the altruism and societal outreach section with other tools measures core values in the workplace and their association with employee satisfaction and intent-to-stay. An inverse relationship was noted between satisfaction and providing pro bono services for the physical therapy cohort. However, there were two positive relationships with intent-to-stay in the job: promoting cultural competence within the profession and larger public for the supervisors and providing therapy services to the underserved and underrepresented populations for the total employee cohort. The findings suggest that altruism and social responsibility subsets, along with other cultural tools, may be used to expose culturally embodied values in private physical therapy practice.
Recommended Citation
Beazley, Debra; Kim, Agnes; and Bolgla, Lori
(2023)
"Quantitative Pilot Study: Impact of Social Responsibility and Altruism Values on Rehabilitation Employee Satisfaction,"
Asian Journal of Physical Therapy: Vol. 1:
No.
2023, Article 6.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.lmunet.edu/ajpt/vol1/iss2023/6
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