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6 Career Satisfaction and Its Determinants
Nihal Apaydin
Department of Anatomy and Brain Research Center, Faculty of Medicine, Ankara University, Ankara, Turkey
6.1 Introduction
Career satisfaction is the main, and perhaps the only, preventive remedy for professional “burnout” and attrition. The concept of career satisfaction has been defined in many ways by many different researchers and practitioners. Early definitions of career satisfaction have been suggested by Vroom (1964), as well as Hackman and Oldham (1975); however, one of the most widely used definitions was proposed by Locke (1976), who described career satisfaction as “a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one's job or job experiences.” Three indispensable elements of career satisfaction are (i) passion and motivation, (ii) proficiency and skill, and (iii) opportunity and benefit (Figure 6.1). A person's attitude toward their job is usually a result of personal experience, which includes emotions and judgments. Within academia, career satisfaction can also be seen in the broader context, which includes determinants that affect an individual's professional experience and quality of working life. There is often a disparity between personal expectations of the job and the possibilities or opportunities presented by the job's environment.
Figure 6.1 Three elements of career satisfaction.
Career success is almost always divided into different domains: extrinsic success versus intrinsic success, objective success versus subjective success, or material elements of success versus psychological elements of success. Markers of extrinsic success can be a financial reward, a job promotion, a position of leadership, grants, and publications. Intrinsic success is measured by a more general satisfaction with career and life (Rubio et al. 2011). This chapter explores the factors influencing career satisfaction, especially among academics and physicians.
6.2 Determinants of Career Satisfaction
There are several determinants for career satisfaction. In general, determinants found to affect satisfaction include age, one's profession, job proficiency, education level, working hours, workplace size, income, gender, marital status, and cultural intelligence, among others (D'Addio et al. 2007; Bender and Sloane 1998). For example, it is reported that more educated people have a lower job satisfaction. Perhaps because people who are more educated have higher expectations, and therefore are more susceptible to disappointment and dissatisfaction. Married people report greater job satisfaction and those with health problems report lower job satisfaction. The relationship between age and career satisfaction follows a U‐shaped pattern in which the youngest and oldest individuals report the greatest job satisfaction. People with higher earnings are generally more satisfied; however, those reporting more hours of work demonstrate the same level of satisfaction as those reporting fewer hours of work (Clark et al. 1996; Clark and Oswald 1996). Academics are happier than nonacademics (Bender and Heywood 2006).
The size of the establishment is also correlated with employee satisfaction. For example, large establishments organize work and production in a less flexible fashion than smaller establishments, and lower levels of job satisfaction have been reported in larger establishments (Idson 1990).
Among the academic disciplines, those in mathematics and engineering are least satisfied with their job, while those in management and the health sciences report relatively high job satisfaction ratings (Table Table 6.1). It is also worth mentioning that government employees report less job satisfaction than people in the private sector (Bender and Heywood 2006). A study has shown that while earnings contribute to job satisfaction, nonpecuniary benefits – such as relationships with colleagues, the nature of teaching, and publication success – are actually more important determinants of job satisfaction among Scottish academics (Ward and Sloane 2000).
Table 6.1 Job satisfaction by discipline and sector.
Source: Adapted with modifications and from Bender and Heywood 2006. Reproduced with permission from Wiley.
| Discipline | Sector | Average job satisfaction a | % Very satisfied |
| All | Academic Nonacademic | 3.43 3.37 | 52.3 49.8 |
| Management | Academic Nonacademic | 3.56 3.47 | 60.9 56.8 |
| Health | Academic Nonacademic | 3.44 3.46 | 52.3 56.5 |
| Social Science | Academic Nonacademic | 3.45 3.44 | 53.2 54.3 |
| Engineering | Academic Nonacademic | 3.43 3.31 | 52.6 42.7 |
| Economics | Academic Nonacademic | 3.48 3.44 | 52.3 52.7 |
| Computer | Academic Nonacademic |
|