Does the Academics Member Remuneration Impact Job Satisfaction of Academic Faculty Members of state Universities in Sri Lanka?

Abstract

major to the field of organizational behavior and the practice of human Alniacik, Akcin, and Gurinder Gursharan point out that job satisfaction “is the positive emotional response to the job situation resulting from attaining what the employee wants from their job”. Job satisfaction is vital for personal well-being and organizational effectiveness (Lim, 2008). Job satisfaction has been a significant contemporary issue (Akpofure et al., 2006). An employee who is satisfied with his job will perform his duties well and be committed to his job, and subsequently to his organization. Thus, it is of utmost importance for employers to know the factors that can affect their employees’ job satisfaction level since it can affect the performance of the organization as well; this is especially true in the university sector. The excellence of a university is directly related to the excellence of its faculty members; higher education is the foundation for nearly all professional careers. Higher education plays an important role in the socio-economic development of a country. Due to the fast pace of growing technology and changing environment, today countries such as Sri Lanka are concerned about to be more adaptable to these changing trends, helping them to face the challenges of the globalized world. The main purpose of this study was to examine whether the remuneration of the state university lectures had an impact on their overall job satisfaction and to assess the overall level of job satisfaction of university lectures of state universities in Sri Lanka. A quantitative approach was employed in this study, and a structured questionnaire was used to collect data from university lectures in fifteen state universities in Sri Lanka. Out of fifteen state universities, a representative sample based on a multi-stage stratified random sampling method was used, where 500 questionnaires were distributed and 423 questionnaires deemed usable for further analysis were identified. In terms of findings, the multiple regression analysis performed to test the research hypothesis on the relationship between remuneration and overall job satisfaction indicated that the factor ‘remuneration’ is a significant positive factor affecting the overall lectures job satisfaction of academics in Sri Lankan state universities. Further, in terms of the overall job satisfaction of academic staff members of Sri Lankan state universities, the median and mean values of were found to be 3.95 and 3.93 (in a 1-5 Likert scale), respectively, and in addition, the mean value was also found to be significantly higher than the neural value 3 (based on one-sample t-test). This means that the university lectures are generally satisfied with their jobs in the Sri Lankan context.