Job satisfaction in the academic sphere

Abstract

The article analyzes job satisfaction among the academic staff in Russia. The materials on the social and professional well-being of the scientific and pedagogical personnel of the Southern Federal University provide empirical evidence for the study. The authors justify the new meanings for such concepts as "job satisfaction", "satisfaction with work results", "subjective metrics", "subjective value". The theoretical and methodological framework of the study includes indicators of the general level of job satisfaction, satisfaction with work-role inputs and factors that characterize work-role outputs. Based on empirical data, the results on job satisfaction for the Southern Federal University are compared with the data provided by the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey, RLMS-HSE, for the Russian education system. The case of the Southern Federal University is suggested to test the method of cross-national comparisons authored by Alfonso SousaPoza and Andres Sousa-Poza, focused on the level of work satisfaction relying on workrole inputs and work-role outputs. This methodology allows the authors to build a comparative matrix of satisfaction with factors that ensure the work process and factors that assess satisfaction with work results. This matrix can serve as a theoretical basis for defining benchmarks for policies related to the academic personnel management through motivation.