Social Science Grant Analyzes Faculty Satisfaction Using COACHE Data
PI: K.D. Joshi, Professor of Information Systems, WSU
Funded: 2011
Project Overview and Link to ADVANCE Initiatives
The objective of this proposed work is to further extend our understanding of the associate professors’ career development at WSU within the context of their job satisfaction levels. More specifically, this work will look at the issue of associate professors’ career development by segmenting this group based on their attitudes and perceptions about WSU’s promotion policies, nature of their work, and climate surrounding their work. The aforementioned objective is well aligned with ADVANCE’s Leadership and Advancement initiative which focuses on identifying and overcoming barriers to retention and advancement of post-tenured faculty.
The proposed work will be conducted in two phases. In the first phase, I will segment associate professors based on their perceived satisfaction with the promotion policies and practices, the nature of their work (i.e., research, service, and teaching), and their department climate. This identification of homogenous groups is done using a Latent Profile modeling approach.
In the second phase, I will first profile each cluster on the basis of the demographics and psychographics information and then extend this profile on the basis of career advancement goals and past performance. By creating these rich profiles, we will be able to understand whether or not the segmentation process reveals any meaningful differences in the demographics, psychographics, performance, and career advancement goals that contribute to associate professor’s job satisfaction at WSU.
The association between job satisfaction and career advancement is fairly well established. Individuals who are satisfied with their jobs are not only productive members of their organization, but also are less likely to leave the organization. At WSU, although the turnover rate of associate professors (23% in 6 years; 33% over all years) is lower than assistant professors (44% in 6 years), the advancement of associate professors to full professors in a timely manner is much lower (22% in 6 years) or at all (40% in 15 years for the 1992 cohort) (McSweeney 2008). For instance, there is some evidence to suggest that this lower rate of advancement possibly contributes to low job satisfaction levels at the associate rank. The analysis of WSU COACHE data collected in 2009 suggests that, on average job satisfaction of faculty at the associate professor rank is significantly lower than the for the individuals in the assistant and full professorship ranks (Joshi and Ward 2010). Although this work indicates that as a group, even after controlling for time since tenure, gender, and academic disciplines, associate professors are consistently less satisfied than the assistant and full professors, I argue that the reasons for job dissatisfaction among associate professors are not homogenous, but rather vary based on how they perceived and feel about the nature of their work, promotion policies, and climate. For instance, it is conceivable that some individuals do not aspire to achieve the rank of full professorship, but this career preference is often not well received/accepted within the academy which maybe contributing to their low levels of job satisfaction. On the other hand, the individuals who aspire to advance to the ranks of full professorship may be dissatisfied due to the structural and organizational barriers that are constraining them from achieving their career advancement goals. Therefore, it is important not to view this group of associates as a monolithic group. By segmenting this group and then further profiling each homogenous sub-group based on demographics, psychographics, performance, and career advancement goals, we will be able to understand the differences within this group which will allow WSU to design customized incentives and policies that fit the needs of each sub-group.
Publications related to the proposed project:
Joshi, K. D., and Kuhn, K. “What It Takes to Succeed in Information Technology Consulting: Exploring the Gender Typing of Critical Attributes, Information Technology and People,” 20(4), 2007.
Joshi, K. D. and Schmidt, N. “Is the Information Systems Profession Gendered? Characterization of IS Professionals and IS Careers.” DATABASE for Advances in Information System, 37(4), pp. 26-41, 2006.
Joshi, K. D. and Kuhn, K., Niederman, F. Excellence in IT Consulting: Integrating Multiple Stakeholders’ Perceptions of Top Performers, IEEE Transaction of Engineering Management, Forthcoming.
Joshi, K. D. and Kuhn, K. “Examining the Masculinity and Femininity of Critical Attributes Necessary to Succeed in IT,” In Gallivan, M., Moore, J.E., and Yager, S. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2005 ACM SIGMIS CPR Conference on Computer
Personnel Research, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, ACM Press: New York, April 2005.
Joshi, K. D. and Kuhn, K. Gender Differences in Information Systems Career Choice: Examine the Role of Attitudes and Social Norms in Selecting IS Profession, M. Serva (ed.) Proceedings of the Association for Computing Machinery: Special
Interest Group on Computer Personnel Research meeting, San Diego, April 2001.
Kuhn, K. and Joshi, K. D., “What Do Women in IT Want? An Empirical Basis for Improving Recruitment and Retention,” in: Encyclopedia of gender and information technology, E. Trauth (ed.), Idea Group Inc Hershey, 2006.
References
McSweeney, F. Cohort Analysis of Associate Professors – from date of promotion to 2007, 2008.
MLA, Standing Still: The Associate Professor Survey, Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in the Profession, Web publication, 27 April 2009.
Joshi and Ward, Retention and Advancement for Mid Career Faculty, available here (ppt)
