Job satisfaction of academic staff at the Institute of Vocational Education at the time of the changes

The opening up of vocational education to private providers and the reduction of funding has forced the Vocational Training Council to re-define its role and structure to meet these challenges. It is against this backdrop that the study seeks to (1) assess the job satisfaction level of teaching staff at the Institute of Vocational Education in Hong Kong at this time of change: (2) investigate the relationship between selected demographic variables, job facet importance and job satisfaction.;Drawing on Lawler's (1973) facet satisfaction theory, this research identifies seventeen job facets relevant to job satisfaction: achievement, advancement opportunities, fair and considerate department head, financial rewards, highly regarded working place, influence in your scope of work, job security, learning opportunities, relations with colleagues, recognition of good work, relationship with students, responsible for important work, task meaningfulness, use of abilities and knowledge, work influence in the workplace, work independence and work esteem. The facet approach allows focusing on different aspects of the job and exposing a more complete picture on job satisfaction.;In this study, a self-reported questionnaire was developed for use in the local vocational education context. The closed end items on facet importance, facet satisfaction and general views were rated on a five-point Likert scale. The survey involved 353 academic staff of the Institute of Vocational Institution (Tsing Yi nexus) with a response rate of 47.3%. Personal interviews were conducted with eight academic staff to supplement the quantitative data. The limited interview findings tallied with the types of issues that were emerging from the quantitative studies.;The research revealed that the level of the overall job satisfaction of the staff was neutral. Contrary to most research findings, there were no significant correlation between the level of job satisfaction and the selected demographic variables. Further, the analysis indicated that the importance predictors had no impact on the level of job satisfaction.