Date of Conferral

2-21-2025

Degree

Doctor of Business Administration (D.B.A.)

School

Business Administration

Advisor

Warren Lesser

Abstract

The declining number of registered nurses (RNs) across all specialties in the United States presents significant challenges to the healthcare system, requiring nursing leaders to implement effective retention strategies. A critical issue for hospital stakeholders is that many nursing leaders lack evidence-based strategies to improve RN retention. Grounded in the stakeholder theory as the conceptual framework, the purpose of this pragmatic inquiry research project was to explore the nurse retention strategies successfully used by six nursing leaders in the Midwest United States. Data were collected through personal interviews and publicly available documents, then analyzed following Yin’s 5-step process ,ensuring data saturation. Findings revealed six key retention strategies: offering RN competitive pay, improving hiring and onboarding processes, prioritizing RN recognition, offering RN training/education opportunities, procuring more staff, and providing RNs with a flexible work schedule. A key recommendation is that nurse leaders should make assessing RN well-being a routine performance metric. The implications of positive social change include the potential to show nurse leaders how to improve RN retention, leading to fewer medical errors, higher quality of care, better treatment outcomes, enhanced dignity, and improved quality of life for local citizens.

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