Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to use generational cohort and professionalism theories as the framework to examine the interaction between supervisor-subordinate relationships, work-family conflict, discretionary power and affective commitment at the work-life interface for Northeast Brazilian public sector professional nurses.
Design/methodology/approach – Quantitative data were collected from 550 public hospital nurses in North-Eastern Brazil. Path and multivariate analysis were used to test the hypotheses.
Findings – The findings demonstrate that the impact of the independent variables on affective commitment was statistically significant but low. The impact of NPM factors such as contracting out and multiple job-holding was a major influence on affective commitment and work-life interface across generational cohorts. The analysis revealed significant differences between generational cohorts and suggested that affective commitment may well be enhanced by improving the quality of the work-life interface and consequently, the wellbeing of nurses.
Research limitations/implications – This study is confined to the Northeast of Brazil and confined to public sector hospitals. The self-reporting techniques used in this study to gather information may be open to common method bias.
Originality/value – The contribution of this research includes the provision of new information about the working context of professional nurses in Brazil, which is a fast growing BRICS economy where the issues surrounding the practice of nursing and nurse management are not well studied to date (i.e. NPM impact on nurse environment). North-eastern Brazilian managers need to be more aware of generational differences and their impact on levels of affective commitment and the quality of the work-life interface and wellbeing.