Leadership and Job Satisfaction: Adjunct Faculty at a For-Profit University

Abstract

There is a lack of research in the for-profit sector of higher education in the United States. Likewise, there is a lack of research on the factors that affect the job satisfaction of adjunct faculty. To address these gaps in knowledge, a quantitative correlational study was performed to investigate the effect of administrative leadership on the job satisfaction of adjunct faculty who teach online classes at a for-profit university in the United States. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire, which measures perceived leadership behaviors, and Spector’s Job Satisfaction Survey, which measures job satisfaction, were used to anonymously collect data from a sample of 77 adjunct faculty. The Full-Range Leadership, which is composed of transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership behaviors, was the theoretical model for leadership. Pearson’s product moment correlational analyses were performed to investigate the bi-variate relationships between the variables. The dependent variable of total satisfaction had a statistically significant, direct and strong correlation with the independent variable of transformational leadership (r = .536, p < .0005). The strength and direction of the relationship indicated that increases in the scores of total satisfaction are associated with increases in scores in transformational leadership. Total satisfaction had a statistically significant, indirect and moderate correlation with the independent variable of laissez-faire leadership (r = -.372, p = .001). The strength and direction of the relationship indicated that lower total satisfaction scores are associated with higher laissez-faire leadership scores. There was no statistically significant relationship between transactional leadership and overall job satisfaction.