Work engagement, defined in the occupational psychology literature as a positive, fulfilling state characterized by vigour, dedication and absorption, has long been recognized as a cornerstone of nursing performance. Engaged nurses deliver safer care, report higher job satisfaction and are less likely to leave the profession. Yet amid global nursing shortages and the lingering aftershocks of the COVID-19 pandemic, engagement levels have come under sustained pressure from excessive workloads, limited resources and chronic stress. Understanding what sustains engagement has therefore become a priority for both researchers and hospital administrators.

The new study, grounded in the Job Demands–Resources (JD-R) model, set out to test a pathway that has been largely unexplored in nursing contexts. The researchers distinguished between two related but distinct constructs: work capital, which describes the objective availability of resources an employee can access—economic means, professional skills and knowledge, social relationships, and organizational support—and decent work, which captures how employees subjectively evaluate the fairness, security and dignity of their conditions. The central question was whether decent work functions as the psychological bridge through which work capital translates into engagement.

To investigate, the team conducted a cross-sectional survey between August and November 2025, recruiting registered nurses from six hospitals in Zhejiang Province, including three tertiary, two secondary and one primary care facility. Of 593 questionnaires distributed, 535 valid responses were retained, a response rate of 90.2 per cent. The sample was overwhelmingly female (96.1 per cent), predominantly aged between 31 and 39, and highly qualified, with 92.7 per cent holding a bachelor’s degree and more than half serving as nurse practitioners-in-charge. Participants spanned medical, surgical, intensive care and emergency units.

The researchers used three validated instruments: a 16-item work capital scale covering economic, human, social and cultural dimensions; Duffy’s 15-item decent work scale, which assesses emotional safety, healthcare benefits, pay fairness, work–life balance and value alignment; and the widely used Utrecht Work Engagement Scale. All scales underwent forward and backward translation into Chinese and showed strong internal consistency in the final sample, with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of 0.91, 0.93 and 0.92 respectively.

The statistical machinery was rigorous. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to refine the measurement model, with items showing weak factor loadings removed to yield a 35-item structure that fit the data well (CFI = 0.92, RMSEA = 0.056, SRMR = 0.046). Discriminant validity checks, including the Fornell–Larcker criterion and HTMT ratios, confirmed that work capital and decent work—despite their conceptual kinship—are statistically distinct constructs. Harman’s single-factor test suggested common method bias was not a serious concern.

The findings were striking. Work capital was strongly and positively associated with decent work (B = 0.74, p < 0.001), and decent work in turn was strongly associated with work engagement (B = 0.85, p < 0.001). The total association between work capital and engagement was significant, but when decent work entered the model, the direct association shrank dramatically. Bootstrap mediation analysis with 5,000 resamples showed a significant indirect effect of 0.63 (95 per cent confidence interval 0.53 to 0.74), meaning roughly 77 per cent of the total association between resources and engagement appeared to flow through nurses’ perceptions of decent work.

In practical terms, the message is that resources alone do not produce engagement—they must be experienced as decent. A hospital may fund training programmes, offer benefits and staff adequately, but if nurses do not perceive their treatment as fair, their pay as adequate or their work–life balance as protected, much of the motivational benefit is lost. Conversely, investments in resources that demonstrably improve perceptions of workplace dignity and fairness appear to pay a double dividend, boosting both perceived job quality and the engagement that follows from it.

The authors are careful to flag the study’s limits. As a cross-sectional design, it cannot establish causality; it is entirely plausible that highly engaged nurses simply perceive their conditions more favourably, or that reverse and reciprocal relationships operate. The sample, drawn from a single Chinese province and dominated by female, bachelor-educated respondents, may not generalize to other settings. Self-reported data are also vulnerable to social desirability bias, and factors such as job demands, emotional labour and organizational support were not modelled.

Even so, the study extends the JD-R framework in a meaningful direction by positioning decent work as a perceptual mechanism linking organizational resources to motivation. For hospital administrators, the takeaway is twofold: invest in the tangible foundations of nursing work—education, staffing, equipment and team support—but measure success not just by what is provided, by whether nurses genuinely feel their work is fair, secure and worthy of respect. In an era when retaining nurses has become a global emergency, that perceptual layer may be the most valuable resource of all.