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International Journal of Recent Advances in Organizational Behaviour and Decision Sciences (IJRAOB) An Online International Research Journal (ISSN: 2311-3197) 2015 Vol: 1 Issue 4 540 www.globalbizresearch.org Does Social Recognition Impact Job satisfaction of Academic Faculty Members of State Universities in Sri Lanka T. S. M. Amarasena, Faculty of Management Studies & Commerce, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka. Email: [email protected] A.R. Ajward, Faculty of Management Studies & Commerce, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka. Email: [email protected] A.K.M. Ahasanul Haque, Department of Business Administration, International Islamic University Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Email: [email protected] Abstract The purpose of this study was to assess the overall level of job satisfaction of academic faculty members of state universities in Sri Lanka and to examine whether social recognition of these academic members had an impact on their overall job satisfaction. Quantitative method was employed to collect data using a structured questionnaire from academics in fifteen state universities in Sri Lanka. A representative sample based on multi stage stratified random sampling method was selected, where 500 questionnaires were distributed and 423 questionnaires deemed usable for further analysis were identified. In terms of findings, the median and mean values of the overall job satisfaction of academic staff members of Sri Lankan state universities 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. This means that the academic members are generally satisfied with their jobs in the Sri Lankan context. Further, the multiple regression analysis performed to test the research hypothesis on the relationship between social recognition and overall job satisfaction indicated that the factor “social recognition” was a highly significant positive factor affecting the overall faculty job satisfaction in Sri Lanka. These findings are also expected to have significant policy implications. Kew words: Job satisfaction, Social Recognition, State Universities in Sri Lanka JEL Classification: D 23

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Page 1: Does Social Recognition Impact Job satisfaction of ...globalbizresearch.org/files/5040_ijraob_t-s-m-am...2. Literature Review 2.1 Sri Lankan Context In the present Sri Lankan context,

International Journal of Recent Advances in Organizational Behaviour and Decision Sciences (IJRAOB)

An Online International Research Journal (ISSN: 2311-3197)

2015 Vol: 1 Issue 4

540 www.globalbizresearch.org

Does Social Recognition Impact Job satisfaction of Academic Faculty

Members of State Universities in Sri Lanka

T. S. M. Amarasena,

Faculty of Management Studies & Commerce,

University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka.

Email: [email protected]

A.R. Ajward,

Faculty of Management Studies & Commerce,

University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka.

Email: [email protected]

A.K.M. Ahasanul Haque,

Department of Business Administration,

International Islamic University Malaysia,

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Email: [email protected]

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess the overall level of job satisfaction of academic

faculty members of state universities in Sri Lanka and to examine whether social recognition

of these academic members had an impact on their overall job satisfaction. Quantitative

method was employed to collect data using a structured questionnaire from academics in

fifteen state universities in Sri Lanka. A representative sample based on multi stage stratified

random sampling method was selected, where 500 questionnaires were distributed and 423

questionnaires deemed usable for further analysis were identified. In terms of findings, the

median and mean values of the overall job satisfaction of academic staff members of Sri

Lankan state universities 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. This means that the academic members are generally satisfied with their jobs in the

Sri Lankan context. Further, the multiple regression analysis performed to test the research

hypothesis on the relationship between social recognition and overall job satisfaction

indicated that the factor “social recognition” was a highly significant positive factor

affecting the overall faculty job satisfaction in Sri Lanka. These findings are also expected to

have significant policy implications.

Kew words: Job satisfaction, Social Recognition, State Universities in Sri Lanka

JEL Classification: D 23

Page 2: Does Social Recognition Impact Job satisfaction of ...globalbizresearch.org/files/5040_ijraob_t-s-m-am...2. Literature Review 2.1 Sri Lankan Context In the present Sri Lankan context,

International Journal of Recent Advances in Organizational Behaviour and Decision Sciences (IJRAOB)

An Online International Research Journal (ISSN: 2311-3197)

2015 Vol: 1 Issue 4

541 www.globalbizresearch.org

1. Background of the Study

Job satisfaction is a most important factor in the field of human resource management

(Majumder, 2012). Job satisfaction results from the employees’ sensitivity of how well their

job provides those things they viewed as significant. According to the Kaliski (2007), job

satisfaction “is the key ingredient that leads to recognition, income, promotion, and the

achievement of other goals that lead to an emotion of fulfillment”. On the other hand, Heslop

et al. (2002) explained that job satisfaction “is the difference between what an individual’s

expectations, needs or values about the job are, and what the job actually delivers”.

Furthermore, Lim (2008) defined job satisfaction “is vital for personal interests and

organizational effectiveness”.

It should be noted that education is considered as the most important aspect of every

one’s life. Especially higher education plays a vital role in the deployment of the country. The

quality of a university is the superiority of its faculty members (Amarasena et al., 2015);

higher education being the base for nearly all professional careers. For the socio-economic

development of a country, higher education plays a significant role. Nowadays the fast pace

of changing environment and growing technology has raised concern for countries like Sri

Lanka to be more open to changing trends in order to face the challenges of the globalized

world. Quality higher education has currently become an essential part in development and

success of a country. A lot of countries paying better courtesy to their higher education, bring

technological and structural reforms, efficiently utilize their intellectual resources consistently

to the needs of higher education are now the leading giants in this globalized world (Nyangau

and Josiah, 2014).

A country, which has been ready and highly facilitated with quality institutions with

talented group of academic staff enriched with creativity, will undoubtedly, be the market

leader in innovations. In such institutions, job satisfaction among academic staff members

could be considered to be a key element, and thus, its different dimensions merits

examination; this is due to satisfaction leads to high productivity and performance of staff

members and benefits the organization as well as students (Saleem, 2010).

Stewartg (2004) indicates that once the level of job satisfaction increases, both personnel

and organizations will achieve their goals and will thus be more successful. There is a

growing interest in order to determine its impact on the performance of academics and the

level of job satisfaction in higher education, and accordingly various Job satisfaction related

studies have been done in developed countries (Duong, 2013). However, the researchers note

that only a few studies been done in developing countries like Sri Lanka. Therefore, it is

essential to work on such areas that can be developed to increase the efficiency of academic

faculty members, and thus of the organizations as well as the students in the country (Saleem,

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International Journal of Recent Advances in Organizational Behaviour and Decision Sciences (IJRAOB)

An Online International Research Journal (ISSN: 2311-3197)

2015 Vol: 1 Issue 4

542 www.globalbizresearch.org

2010). Furthermore, Oshagbemi (2003) explained that employee job satisfaction is an

important attribute that organizations desire of their staff. Eyupoglu and Saner (2009)

conclude that various reasons exist for studying academic faculty job satisfaction, as research

indicated that if low dissatisfaction and job satisfaction exist among the academic faculty

members, then the goals of higher education could not be accomplished. Satisfied employees

have lower rates of both turnover and absenteeism. Job satisfaction is also significantly linked

to employee absenteeism (Hackett and Guion, 1985).

Munhurrun et al. (2009) find that job satisfaction should not be ignored, but only a few

organizations seriously had considered it. Further, it is noted that most of the research studies

in the field of employee satisfaction are on profit-making manufacturing and service

organizations; and thus there has been an increasing interest on satisfaction of academics in

higher education. Küskü (2003) indicates that the reason for such growing attention is being

due to the fact that labor intensively of higher education establishments and their heavy

allocations in the budgets for academics; as well as dependence on of their staff for depicting

the organization’s effectiveness. Based on the above observations, job satisfaction of the

employees in higher education institutions could be considered a very important issue that

merits in-depth examination.

Having established the importance of job satisfaction, many research studies have

indicated that several factors contribute to the job satisfaction among academic staff members

that include, work content, work autonomy, development, financial rewards, promotion,

supervision, communication, co-workers, workload, etc. (Saane et al., 2003, Roelen et al.,

2008). Further, Board (2007) explained that reward, incentives and recognition are the basic

factors for motivation of the employees in the organization. Among these factors, one of the

main factor identified is the social recognition of academic staff members (Locke, 1976;

Josias, 2005; Marks, 2006). Locke (1976) indicates that recognition is one of the most

frequently used elements cited as a cause of job satisfaction or dissatisfaction in employees.

Apart from these extant studies which recognize social recognition as a key factor in

enhancing the job satisfaction of the academicians, theories including Herzberg two factor

theory (1959), Aldefer ERG theory (1972), Maslow’s need hierarchy theory (1943, 1954),

and recently Vroom’s Valence, Instrumentality and Expectancy Theory (1964) establish a

strong relationship between them. However, the authors do not observe sufficient studies

performed on the relationship between social recognition and academic job satisfaction

particularly in the context of developing countries as Sri Lanka, and observe it as a research

gap that needs to be addressed. Accordingly, present research study mainly focuses on social

recognition as a significant factor that contributes to the job satisfaction of academic staff

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International Journal of Recent Advances in Organizational Behaviour and Decision Sciences (IJRAOB)

An Online International Research Journal (ISSN: 2311-3197)

2015 Vol: 1 Issue 4

543 www.globalbizresearch.org

members in state universities in Sri Lanka. The research objectives based on this premise are

discussed below:

1.1 Research Questions and Objectives

There are two main research questions addressed in this study; first question is on

assessing what is the level of the overall level of job satisfaction, and the second question is

on what is the association between social recognition and job satisfaction, of academic faculty

members of state universities in Sri Lanka. Accordingly, there are two main objectives of this

research study, and the first is to assess degree of the overall level of job satisfaction of the

academic faculty members of state universities in the Sri Lankan context. Then, the second

research objective is to investigate the impact of social recognition on job satisfaction of

academic faculty members of state universities in Sri Lanka. Apart from these main

objectives, this study also attempts to examine the impact of selected demographic factors on

the level of job satisfaction of academic faculty members of state universities in Sri Lanka.

This research paper is structured as follows: Section 2 discusses the literature pertaining

to the association between social recognition and job satisfaction and develops the related

hypothesis proposed to be tested in this study. Section 3 discusses the methodology in testing

this proposed hypothesis and other methodological dimensions of the study. Section 4

presents the data analysis and findings, while the final section provides the related

conclusions derived under this study.

2. Literature Review

2.1 Sri Lankan Context

In the present Sri Lankan context, there are 15 public universities with approximately

80,000 internal students and 5200 faculty members (University Grants Commission, 2013).

These universities are under the purview of Ministry of Higher Education, which was

established in March 1978, and is governed by the Universities Act No 16 of 1978. Further,

the University Grants Commission (UGC) serves as a buffer between the universities and the

government. The main functions of the UGC includes planning and coordinating in keeping

with national policy, regulation of administration, maintenance of academic standards,

selecting of students for state universities, and allocating public funds to higher educational

institutions and control of expenditure (Samaranayake, 2010).

2.2 Social Recognition and Job Satisfaction

According to Josias (2005) being recognized in their respective work places, almost all

employees will place a high importance on such recognition. In an academic setup, social

recognition could be considered as the judgment, which is provided to an academic for being

a valued individual of his/her educational institution and society. Hellman (1997) explains

that recognition is the rewards of monetary and non-monetary nature given in the community

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International Journal of Recent Advances in Organizational Behaviour and Decision Sciences (IJRAOB)

An Online International Research Journal (ISSN: 2311-3197)

2015 Vol: 1 Issue 4

544 www.globalbizresearch.org

or communicated in the place of work based on the achievement or success of a person.

Marks (2006) agree with this view and claims that recognition is given as non-monetary and

monetary incentives for selected behaviors that are desirable. Thus, it is seen that providing

an important status to an employee within an organization involves the process of recognition.

In the presence of growth opportunities and rewards, Danish and Usman (2010) argue that

employees are highly motivated, while in the absence the employees are less motivated.

Furthermore, Ali and Ahmed (2009) indicate that there is a statistically significant positive

association between recognition and reward respectively, also job satisfaction and motivation.

This research asserted that if recognition or rewards provided to employees were to be

changed, then there will be a consequent change in the job satisfaction and work motivation.

On the other hand, Olsen, Maple, and Stage (1995) elaborate that female academicians view

institutional support and recognition as having a positive influence on the job satisfaction of

academicians.

In terms of the association between social recognition and job satisfaction, many studies

have identified a strong relationship between them by using various theories including

Herzberg two factor theory (1959), Aldefer ERG theory (1972), Maslow’s need hierarchy

theory (1943, 1954), and recently Vroom’s Valence, Instrumentality and Expectancy Theory

(1964). Among the most frequently used factors that results in satisfaction or dissatisfaction

among employees, Locke (1976) indicates that recognition is a key factor. Thus, it is apparent

that management in organizations can use recognition as a source of job satisfaction for their

employees. Hertzberg et al. (1959) claim that recognition could be considered as an intrinsic

element that positively an affects the level of job satisfaction. Further, as indicated above, Ali

and Ahmed (2009b) found that between reward and recognition, there is a relationship that is

statistically significant, and also between motivation and satisfaction.

Based on the above discussion, it is apparent that there is a significant positive association

between the social recognition and job satisfaction of employees, and the related extant

research studies find that it is especially applicable for academicians. Furthermore, it is

particularly interesting to note that studies pertaining to the developing countries have found

the aspect of social recognition to be important even being a non-monetary benefit. Thus, the

authors of this study are highly motivated to examine the role of social recognition in the

context of academicians of the public universities in Sri Lanka.

Considering the information discussed, the following hypothesis is developed and

proposed to be tested in this study:

H1: Social recognition will positively associate with job satisfaction of academic staff

members of Sri Lankan state universities.

Page 6: Does Social Recognition Impact Job satisfaction of ...globalbizresearch.org/files/5040_ijraob_t-s-m-am...2. Literature Review 2.1 Sri Lankan Context In the present Sri Lankan context,

International Journal of Recent Advances in Organizational Behaviour and Decision Sciences (IJRAOB)

An Online International Research Journal (ISSN: 2311-3197)

2015 Vol: 1 Issue 4

545 www.globalbizresearch.org

3. Methodology

3.1 Population and Sample

This uses a quantitative research approach based on the approach used in the dominant

extant literature (Amarasena et al., 2015). The study population of is all academic faculty

members of state universities in Sri Lanka. As indicated in Section 2, in Sri Lanka, there are

fifteen state universities around the country consisting of 5200 (University Grants

Commission, 2013) academic faculty members who are considered as a population for this

study. A sample of 423 academic staff members responded (out of 500 questionnaires sent) as

the sample for the study based on the multi stage stratified random sampling method. The

sample consists of male and female lecturers, professors, senior lecturers and lecturers at all

state universities in Sri Lanka.

3.2 Data Collection

As a primary data collection tool the questionnaire-method was used for this study. The

questionnaire developed based on the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) (Weiss et

al., 1967). This study used a five point Likert scale in the questionnaire. Five -point Likert-type

scale anchored by 1 = “strongly disagree” and 5 = “strongly agree”. Further, demographic

factors were included. In order to ensure the validity and reliability of the questionnaire, the

questionnaire was subjected to the review of experts in the area of human resources

management and was pilot tested. The questions were revised and updated after such

comments and results of the pilot test.

3.3 Data Analysis Methods

As indicated above, extant studies have used quantitative analytical techniques to describe,

analyze the differences and explore the association between the social recognition and job

satisfaction of academicians, which are deemed appropriate in the circumstances. In terms of

the analysis strategy, descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, t-tests, One-way ANOVA and

a multiple regression analysis is proposed and used in describing the data as well as testing the

research hypothesis indicated in Section 2. The model, which is constructed based on the

related extant literature that is proposed to be tested using the multiple linear regression

analysis, is as follows:

𝑂𝑆 = 𝛼 + 𝛽1𝑆𝑅 + 𝛽2𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑜𝑙𝑉𝑎𝑟𝑠 + 𝛽3𝐷𝑒𝑚𝑜𝑉𝑎𝑟𝑠 + 𝜀 (Model 1)

OS: Overall job satisfaction of academic staff members of state universities

SR: Social Recognition of academic staff members of state universities

ControlVars: Remuneration and Workload of academic staff members of state universities

(base on Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) (Weiss et al., 1967)).

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International Journal of Recent Advances in Organizational Behaviour and Decision Sciences (IJRAOB)

An Online International Research Journal (ISSN: 2311-3197)

2015 Vol: 1 Issue 4

546 www.globalbizresearch.org

DemoVarrs: Current Working Status, Teaching Experience, Gender, Age, Highest level of

education, Monthly Salary, and Marital Status of academic staff members of state universities.1

4. Findings and Discussion

4.1 Validity and Reliability

There are eight items in the social recognition (SR) construct that was included in the

questionnaire. The inter-item correlation of these sub-items values are shown in Table 1

below, and the highest correlation for all items are between 0.3 and 0.9, which indicates that a

factor analysis could be performed. Furthermore, the KMO value was 0.891, which is

considered to be good. Accordingly, the factor analysis performed and a single factor was

extracted that explained 56% of the variance in these 8 items. Thus, no any item needed to be

dropped at this stage and the construct validity is ensured. Therefore, the mean for these eight

items was computed and saved as the variable: social recognition to be used in further

analysis.

Table1: Inter-item correlation values for items in Social Recognition

SR1 SR2 SR3 SR4 SR5 SR6 SR7 SR8

SR1

SR2

SR3

SR4

SR5

SR6

SR7

SR8

-

.548 -

.452 .571 -

.603 .495 .473 -

.498 .548 .499 .633 -

.590 .447 .382 .698 .603 -

.383 .478 .541 .412 .469 .393 -

.399 .518 .501 .388 .401 .346 .576 -

(Source: Researchers’ Field Survey, 2015)

As noted in Table 1 above, the inter-item correlation values for social recognition trait

items were above .3, and thus all items were consistent with the construct (Hair et al., 1998).

Furthermore, the Cronbach’s Alpha value for the social recognition construct was .885

reflecting that the measured items have high internal reliability and consistency.

4.2 Descriptive Statistics

In this study, responses were obtained from fifteen state universities in Sri Lanka. As

indicated under methodology section of the paper, the population of academic staff members

is 5200 approximately in Sri Lanka all state universities (University Grants Commission,

2013), and 423 academic faculty staff members were selected as the sample. Out of these 423

academic members, 51% were males and rests of them (49%) were females. Most of the

respondents (55%) were senior lecturers, while in terms of teaching experience, majority

1 The categories of the demographic variables are depicted in Table 3 in page 547.

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International Journal of Recent Advances in Organizational Behaviour and Decision Sciences (IJRAOB)

An Online International Research Journal (ISSN: 2311-3197)

2015 Vol: 1 Issue 4

547 www.globalbizresearch.org

(70%) have at least 15 years teaching of experience. The majority (77%) of respondents have

either a Masters or a Doctorate degree. Further, a majority of respondents (47%) had a

monthly salary more than Rs. 95000. In terms of marital status, out of total respondents, 84%

were married.

Table 2: Descriptive statistics on the overall level of Job Satisfaction (OS) of faculty members

N Minimum Maximum Meana SD Percentiles Skewness Kurtosis

25 50 75

OS 423 3 5 3.93*** .568 3.57 3.95 4.33 -.239 -.635

(Source: Researchers’ Field Survey, 2015)

aNote: The one-sample t-test indicates whether the mean value (M=3.93) is statistically significantly

different from neural value of 3 in the Likert scale (1-5).

*p < .05, ** p < .01, ***p < .00

In the Table 2 above, the descriptive statistics of the overall job, satisfaction of the

academic staff members in Sri Lankan state university is depicted. Based on this table, the

mean overall job satisfaction is 3.93 and the median value is 3.95 in a 1-5 Likert scale.

Further, the one-sample t-test indicates that the mean value, 3.93 is statistically significantly

higher than the neutral value of 3. Accordingly, these results indicate that the academic

members in general are quite satisfied with their job.

4.3 t-test and One-way ANOVA Test Results for Social Recognition

Table 3 below depicts the difference between/among all the selected demographic

variables (i.e., Current Working Status, Teaching Experience, Gender, Age, Highest level of

education, Monthly Salary, and Marital Status) in terms of social recognition.

Table 3: t-test and One-way ANOVA for Social Recognition

Groups Mean

Values

t-test/One-

way

ANOVA

Difference

Current working

status:

1. Professor

2. Senior Lecturer

3. Lecturer

4.169

3.883

3.837

F-value:

8.069***

Groups: ‘Professor’ and ‘Senior Lecturer

categories are statistically significantly (p<.05)

different. Groups: ‘Professor’ and ‘Lecturer

categories are statistically significantly (p<.01)

different.

Teaching

Experience:

1. Less than 5 Years

2. 5 <= Years < 10

3. 10 <= Years < 15

4. 15 <= Years < 20

5. 20 <= Years < 25

6. Over 25 years

3.869

3.848

3.899

3.843

4.064

4.013

F-value:

1.634

No significant difference among the groups

(p>.05)

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International Journal of Recent Advances in Organizational Behaviour and Decision Sciences (IJRAOB)

An Online International Research Journal (ISSN: 2311-3197)

2015 Vol: 1 Issue 4

548 www.globalbizresearch.org

Gender:

1.Male

2.Female

3.917

3.876

t-value: -

.838

No significant difference among the groups

(p>.05)

Age:

1. Less than 30 years

2. 30 <= Years < 40

3. 40 <= Years < 50

4. 50 <= Years < 60

5. Over 60years

3.854

3.877

3.869

3.984

4.031

F-value:

1.121

No significant difference among the groups

(p>.05)

Highest level of

education:

1. Bachelor’s Degree

2. Master’s Degree

(MBA/MSC)

3. Doctoral Degree

4. Other

3.843

3.938

3.884

3.913

F-value:

.610

No significant difference among the groups

(p>.05)

Monthly Salary:

1. Less than Rs.

35000

2. 35000 <= RS <

50000

3. 50000 <= RS <

65000

4. 65000 <= RS <

80000

5. 80000 <= RS <

95000

6. More than Rs.

95000

3.558

3.813

3.779

3.917

3.829

3.975

F-value:

3.166**

Only groups: ‘Less than Rs. 35000’ and ‘More

than Rs. 95000’ are statistically significantly

(p<.05) different.

Marital status:

1. Married

2. Unmarried

3. Divorced/widowed

3.907

3.823

4.071

F-value:

1.176

No significant difference among the groups

(p>.05)

(Source: Researcher‘s Field Survey, 2015)

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International Journal of Recent Advances in Organizational Behaviour and Decision Sciences (IJRAOB)

An Online International Research Journal (ISSN: 2311-3197)

2015 Vol: 1 Issue 4

549 www.globalbizresearch.org

The results of the t-test and One-way ANOVA tests performed to observe the differences

between/among selected demographic groups in terms of the Social Recognition are depicted

in Table 3. In terms of current working status, only groups: ‘Professor’ (M=4.169) and

‘Senior Lecturer’ (M=3.883) - (p<.05) and ‘Professor’ (M=4.169) and ‘Lecturer’ (M=3.837)

are statistically significantly (p<.01) different. However, in term of the monthly salary only

groups: ‘Less than Rs. 35000’ (M=3.558) and ‘More than Rs. 95000’ (M=3.975) are

statistically significantly (p<.05) different. On the other hand, the rest of other demographic

variables (i.e., Teaching Experience, Gender, Age, Highest level of education, and Marital

Status) are not statistically significantly different (p>.05) in terms of social recognition.

4.4 Results from Multiple Regression Analysis

The purpose of multiple linear regression analysis is to help to understand the prediction

between more than two quantitative variables. Sekaran and Bougie (2010) highlighted the

multiple linear regression analysis presents a method of objectively examining the extent and

the nature of the association between the predictor variables and the outcome variable. As

proposed under Model 1 in the methodology section of this study, a multiple linear regression

analysis is used to evaluate how well the constructs measured predicted the overall job

satisfaction of the university academic faculty members.

In Table 4, the p-value (Sig.) for the social recognition predictor is less than 0.05, which

indicates that it is highly statistically significant positive relationship with overall job

satisfaction. Hence, it could be observed that the overall job satisfaction depends on social

recognition (SR) on a positive and significant basis. Further, the remuneration (RM), work

load (WL) and certain demographic variables are also observed to be statistically significant.

The R2 value is 0.516, which means that about 52% of the variation in overall job satisfaction

(OS) is explained by social recognition (SR) and the other selected control and demographic

variables taken together.

Table 4: The Results from Regression Analysis

Model 1

(Dependent Variable: Overall Job Satisfaction)

Coefficient Std. Error t-value Collinearity

Diagnostics

Tolerance VIF

Social Recognition 0.601*** .045 13.362 .772 1.296

Remuneration 0.064** .027 2.343 .807 1.238

Work Load 0.209*** .039 5.417 .680 1.470

Current working status – Senior Lecturer .008 .085 .090 .221 4.529

Current working status –Lecturer .070 .120 .586 .121 8.298

Teaching Exp.: 5 ≤ Years < 10 .006 .072 .081 .418 2.395

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An Online International Research Journal (ISSN: 2311-3197)

2015 Vol: 1 Issue 4

550 www.globalbizresearch.org

Teaching Exp.: 10≤ Years < 15 .023 .089 .256 .308 3.243

Teaching Exp.: 15 ≤ Years < 20 .103 .107 .961 .328 3.047

Teaching Exp.: 20 ≤ Years < 25 -.119 .116 -1.021 .364 2.750

Teaching Exp.: Over 25 Years -.015 .131 -.117 .274 3.648

Gender- Female -.025 .042 -.582 .881 1.135

Age: 30 ≤ Years < 40 -.004 .094 -.038 .186 5.375

Age: 40 ≤ Years < 50 -.023 .116 -.199 .151 6.636

Age: 50 ≤ Years < 60 -.032 .133 -.241 .149 6.715

Age: Over 60Years .054 .180 .300 .333 3.005

Master’s Degree -.021 .087 -.245 .236 4.240

Doctoral Degree -.023 .100 -.233 .159 6.277

Education-Other -.159 .116 -1.364 .401 2.492

Salary-35,000<=Rs<50,000 .137 .147 .933 .370 2.703

Salary-50,000<=Rs<65,000 .107 .132 .810 .212 4.725

Salary-65,000<=Rs<80,000 .044 .130 .337 .160 6.256

Salary-80,000<=Rs<95,000 .054 .142 .383 .150 6.651

Salary->95,000 0.243* .139 1.744 .081 9.349

Marital Status – Unmarried -.020 .065 -.307 .743 1.347

Marital Status - Divorced/widowed .167 .161 1.035 .928 1.078

Intercept 0.588** .247 2.381

F-value 16.956***

R2 51.6%

N 423

*p < .05, ** p < .01, ***p < .00.

The highest VIF values are within the tolerable limit of 10, hence, there is no issue on

multicollinaerity (Sekaran and Bougie, 2010) (Tabachnick et al., 2007). Furthermore, in the

residual plot diagram (not depicted) all the points were within ±3 and were distributed

randomly, as well as the residuals were symmetrical around the value of 0.

5. Conclusion and Recommendations

A survey of related extant literature indicates that only a few research studies on job

satisfaction of academic faculty staff have been conducted in the context of developing

countries. Therefore, it was highlighted that there is a need for more research studies from

developing countries like Sri Lanka. Thus, this study attempted to identify the impact of

social recognition on overall job satisfaction of academic faculty members of state

universities in Sri Lanka.

In addressing the first objective of the study, i.e., assessing the degree of the job

satisfaction of the academic staff members of the state universities in Sri Lanka, the study

finds that the median value is 3.95 and the mean value of overall job satisfaction is 3.93 (in a

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1-5 Likert scale). This value is also found to be significantly higher than the neural value 3.

Thus, these results indicate that the academic faculty staff members in general are quite

satisfied on their jobs. Furthermore, in the t-test and One-way ANOVA results, under the

current working status, only groups: ‘Professor’ and ‘Senior Lecturer’ and ‘Professor’ and

‘Lecturer’ categories were found to be statistically significantly different. However, under

these tests, under the monthly salary, only groups: ‘Less than Rs. 35000’ and ‘More than Rs.

95000’ were identified to be statistically significantly different. Nevertheless, the rest of other

demographic variables (i.e., Teaching Experience, Gender, Age, Highest level of education,

and Marital Status) are not statistically significantly different (p>.05) in terms of social

recognition. In terms of the second objective of examining the association between the social

recognition and job satisfaction of academic staff members of state universities in Sri Lanka,

the results of the multiple regression analysis indicate that the most important predictor is the

Social Recognition. (Zeb et al. (2014); Ali and Ahmed (2009a)). This result amounts to

valuable policy recommendations, and the relevant authorities could use social recognition as

an important factor and should take steps to enhance the deeply held values and norms such

as respect to teachers, obedience, recognition and respect of the teaching profession, etc.

within the society to increase job satisfaction of academic staff members.

It should be noted that there are few limitations in the present study and the findings and

related conclusions should be interpreted cautiously. Firstly, the study was conducted only in

the Sri Lanka context; and therefore the findings and related conclusions may not be able to

generalized and compared with rest of the other countries in the Asia region and the world. As

future research directions, it is suggested to consider more affecting factors on job satisfaction

among university academic faculty members.

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