The effect of the characteristics of the nurses' individual, professional and working environment and transformational leadership on individual innovation levels

"Nowadays, increasing competition and globalization also oblige the health sector for a change as in other institutions. Exhibition of innovative behaviors by the nurses, who constitute the biggest manpower in health institutions, is very significant for the quality of the service. There are many factors affecting the individual innovation levels of nurses in the studies, but there are not so many studies associating transformational leadership with innovative behavior. This descriptive study was planned to investigate the effect of the characteristics of the nurses' individual, professional and working environment and their perception of transformational leadership in terms of their senior managers on the individual innovation levels. A total of 300 nurses working in a university hospital and a state hospital for at least one year constituted the sampling of the research. The data were collected through the questionnaire consisting of three sections as the information form including the characteristics of the individual, professional and working environment, the Individual Innovation Scale and Transformational Leadership Inventory. In the research, it was found that the individual innovation levels of the nurses were in the interrogating category. The transformational leadership perceived by the nurses regarding senior managers was found to be at a medium level in the score grouping of the transformational leadership inventory. It was determined that the individual innovation levels of the nurses who received postgraduate education, worked in the manager-educator position, worked on the day shift, stated that their professional autonomy and leadership skills were high and that the institution they work for was open to change. No difference was found in the individual innovation levels of the nurses according to their age, duration of experience, perception of workload, administrative support in the institution they work at, lack of resources, up-to-date technological infrastructure and equipment in the unit and suitability of the working conditions. It was found that there was a very low level of relationship between individual innovation levels of the nurses and transformational leadership". Keywords: Nurse, Innovation, Novelty, Individual Innovation, Transformational Leadership.