Using a multimethod approach, this study set out to examine the concept of faculty morale - what it is, what affects it, and how to improve it - in the setting of the four South Pacific tertiary institutions owned and run by the Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Church. Based on three research questions and three major expectations, the study, done between October 1997 and March 1998, was carried out in two stages representing the two models of research - quantitative and qualitative. The study confirmed the multi-faceted and complex nature of morale as well as the close relationship between this concept and that of job satisfaction. While faculty morale appeared better in some institutions than others, the data reported in this study indicate that faculty morale overall seemed to have suffered due to a variety of factors. Most notable among these was the perceived leadership style of senior administrators as manifested through a range of activities and attitudes comprising their willingness or otherwise to share power with the faculty, to follow a satisfactory process of consultation, to allow adequate academic freedom, to promote faculty participation and representation in institutional policy- and decision-making, and to communicate openly with academic staff. Faculty satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the above and other aspects of their senior administrators' leadership style, along with their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with other aspects of their work, were the principal factors linked to faculty morale. The surprising absence of a significant relationship between faculty morale and a religious-oriented commitment among SDA faculty members suggests that religious commitment and morale may, to a large extent, operate independently of each other. Although religious commitment was shown to be very solid among SDA faculty members, the study indicates that this type of commitment has its limits and may be unrelated to commitment to a particular institution. Implications of these findings were drawn out for administrators of the SDA Church in the South Pacific and the on-site administrators and faculty at each of the four institutions studied. The study also contributed to the theoretical understanding of the concept of morale and proposed areas for further research.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/187618 |
| Date | January 1999 |
| Creators | Tagai, Kuresa, School of Education Studies, UNSW |
| Publisher | Awarded by:University of New South Wales. School of Education Studies |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Copyright Kuresa Tagai, http://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/copyright |
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