Academic Staff Job Satisfaction in Saudi Arabia: A Case Study of Academic Institutions in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Academic staff and their job satisfaction, in general, is a widely discussed topic in human resources and organizational management. Much of the interest in this concept is base on the realism that a person with a higher level of job satisfaction would demonstrate a positive attitude toward his/her job than an individual who is miserable with his or her position. This paper examines job satisfaction of academic staff in various institutions in the Eastern region of Saudi Arabia as a means for continuous improvement in the understanding of the role played by academic staff in academic institutions. The principal objectives of the paper are to comprehend the nature of academic staff job satisfaction in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. Job satisfaction questionnaire with 36 items obtained adopted from Spector (1997) for this paper. 45 questionnaires were mailed to various respondents of different universities and institutions in the province with 100% responses. The result shows varieties of response to the nine facets of job satisfaction instruments, namely: pay, promotion, supervision, fringe benefits, contingent rewards, operational conditions, coworkers, nature of work, and communication. Despite the variations in response it is very important for managers of various institution in the region to ensure job satisfaction of their employees for the survival of their institutions in a competitive global learning environment

Keywords: Academic job satisfaction, Education, Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia.