Measuring the Impact of Factors Affecting Job Satisfaction with the Moderating Effect of Demographic Factors among Academic Faculty Members of Public Universities in Sri Lanka

The purpose of this study was to assess; the impact of factors affecting job satisfaction and the
moderating effect of demographic factors among academic faculty members of public universities in
Sri Lanka. In recent years, a number of studies have investigated the job satisfaction of university
faculty in developed countries; however, a little is known about the job satisfaction of academicians in
developing countries such as Sri Lanka. The research method employed was the quantitative method
that collected data from academics in fifteen state universities in Sri Lanka by means of a structured
questionnaire. A representative sample based on the multi stage stratified random sampling method
was auctioned, this involved 500 questionnaires being distributed, with 423 questionnaires identified
being usable for further analysis. In terms of findings, the median and mean values of the overall job
satisfaction of academic staff members of Sri Lankan state universities were found to be 3.95 and
3.93 (in a 1-5 Likert scale), respectively; in addition, the mean value was also found to be significantly
higher than the neural value 3. This means that the academic members are generally satisfied with
their jobs in the Sri Lankan context. Further, the multiple regression analysis performed to test the
research hypothesis on the relationship between remuneration, work load, work autonomy, working
environment and social recognition and overall job satisfaction indicated that the factor “social
recognition” was a highly significant positive factor affecting the overall faculty job satisfaction in Sri
Lanka. The Andrew F. Hayes (2013) module analysis performed to test the moderating effect,
depicted in the results that, the interaction between the constructs variables indicates that the current
working status and gender variables does not have a statistically significant moderating effect (p>.05)
on the overall job satisfaction of academicians. In terms of differences between and amongst different
demographic categories, faculty members at the professor’s levels were more satisfied than other
groups. Further, the findings indicate that lecturers had the lowest job satisfaction level. These
findings are also expected to have significant policy implications.