Job Satisfaction around the Academic World

Higher education systems have changed all over the world, but not all have changed in the same ways. Although system growth and so-called massification have been worldwide themes, there have been system-specific changes as well. It is these changes that have an important impact on academic work and on the opinions of the staff that work in higher education. The academic profession has a key role to play in producing the next generations of knowledge workers, and this task will be more readily achieved by a contented academic workforce working within well-resourced teaching and research institutions. This volume tells the story of academics’ opinions about the changes in their own countries.

The Changing Academic Profession (CAP) survey has provided researchers and policy makers with the capacity to compare the academic profession around the world. Built around national analyses of the survey this book examines academics’ opinions on a range of issues to do with their job satisfaction. Following an introduction that considers the job satisfaction literature as it relates to higher education, country-based chapters examine aspects of job satisfaction within each country.

1. Introduction: Satisfaction Around the World?; Peter James Bentley, Hamish Coates, Ian R Dobson, Leo Goedegebuure and V. Lynn Meek.- 2. Argentina: Academic Work at the Periphery – Why Argentine Scholars Are Satisfied, Despite All; Mónica Marquina and Gabriel Rebello.- 3. Australia: Factors Associated with Job Satisfaction Amongst Australian University Academics and Future Workforce Implications; Peter James Bentley, Hamish Coates, Ian R. Dobson, Leo Goedegebuure and V. Lynn Meek.- 4. Brazil: Job Satisfaction in a Diverse Institutional Environment; Elizabeth Balbachevsky and Simon Schwartzman.- 5. Canada: Canadian University Academics’ Perceptions of Job Satisfaction – “the future is not what is used to be”; Julian Weinrib, Glen A. Jones, Amy Scott Metcalfe, Donald Fisher, Yves Gingras, Kjell Rubenson and Iain Snee.- 6. Finland: Satisfaction Guaranteed! A Tale of Two Systems; Timo Aarrevaara and Ian R. Dobson.- 7. Germany: Determinants of Academic Job Satisfaction; Ester Ava Höhle and Ulrich Teichler.- 8. Japan: Factors Determining Academics’ Job Satisfaction From the Perspective of Role Diversification; Akira Arimoto and Tukasa Daizen.- 9. Malaysia: An Academic Career in Malaysia – A Wonderful Life, or Satisfaction Not Guaranteed?; Norzaini Azman, Morshidi Sirat and Mohd Ali Samsudin.- 10. Portugal: Dimensions of Academic Job Satisfaction; Diana Dias, Maria de Lourdes Machado-Taylor, Rui Sant