Determinants of Academic Job Satisfaction in Germany
German academics are not among the most highly satisfied academics in comparative perspective. However, a comparison between the Carnegie study undertaken in the early 1990s and the CAP study about the academic profession at the end of the first decade of
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Determinants of Academic Job Satisfaction in Germany Ester A. Höhle and Ulrich Teichler
7.1
Introduction
Academic contributions are strongly dependent on individual commitment and motivation. In a changing environment, where universities as well as other higher education institutions are in processes of transformation, academics increasingly find themselves caught between discordant institutional goals. Universities aim both to pursue outstanding innovative research which strikes the balance between a basic, applied commercial or social emphasis and to educate students. These manifold academic tasks have to be taken care by the academic staff. In most cases, the same individual scholars are in charge of multiple tasks (Kreckel 2008). To fulfil varied tasks can be perceived as complementary or as opposing, as enriching or as distracting from the pursuit of any single task. The academics’ schedule entails freedom and requires making decisions to prioritise and to select foci. Therefore, the actual academic work is strongly shaped by an individual commitment and motivation, and this is closely linked to professional satisfaction. The aim of the subsequent analysis is to explore how changing environments, contractual conditions, resources, time budget and the managerial style prevailing within one’s institutional setting influence the academics’ personal overall satisfaction. Satisfaction in one’s professional life is a key element in making a profession attractive (Cabrita and Perista 2007b), and it can contribute to success at work and personal well-being. Actually, overall job satisfaction is addressed in most surveys on employment, but few studies aim to explore the factors which determine the job satisfaction of the academic profession. There are several concepts of job satisfaction. A most elementary approach to satisfaction explains it as the result of a comparison between the target (expectation) E.A. Höhle (*) • U. Teichler International Centre for Higher Education Research (INCHER), University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany e-mail: [email protected] P.J. Bentley et al. (eds.), Job Satisfaction around the Academic World, The Changing Academy – The Changing Academic Profession in International Comparative Perspective 7, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-5434-8_7, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
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E.A. Höhle and U. Teichler
Table 7.1 Institutional type and academic rank of academics in Germany (percentage)
Senior position Junior position Total Total (n)
Universities
Universities of applied sciences
Research institutes
14 86 100 (1,017)
69 31 100 (132)
29 71 100 (465)
Source: CAP data set (May 2010) Question A9: How would you describe your current institution? Question A10: What is your academic rank?
and the perception of the actual condition (realisation of expectation). According to this approach, an insufficiently realised expectation leads to dissatisfaction (Rudow 1994, cited by Enders 1996). Rose views job satisfaction ‘as a bi-dimensional concept consisting of intrinsic and ext
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