Administrative staff members’ job competency and their job satisfaction in a Korean research university

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of administrative staff's job competency on their job satisfaction in a Korean research university. We conceptualized job satisfaction into three subcomponents: satisfaction in the job field, in the workplace, and with the actual task. In the regression analysis, we included demographics, inner motivation, work environments, and nature of work (e.g. clarity of task) factors as the predictors of job satisfaction. We included job competency as a main research variable in the model. This study found that the administrative staff's interpersonal skills affect their overall job satisfaction, and that each dimension of job competency (organizational understanding, problem solving, interpersonal skills, ICT skills, and global competency) has a different impact on the different dimensions of job satisfaction (job field, workplace, and job task).

Keywords:

• university administrative staffs
• job satisfaction
• job competency
• Korean university
• university management

Acknowledgement

This research was supported by a grant from the National Research Foundation of Korea, funded by the Korean Government (NRF-2010-330-B00232). We collaborated with a research team at the case university to design the survey and collect data. We thank the research team members. We would also like to thank the reviewers for their insightful comments on the manuscript.