Management Practices and Job Satisfaction Among Middle Level Management at Public Institutions of Higher Learning

Public institutions of higher learning are given an important and huge responsibility to produce graduates to enables a sustainable and continuous development of the country. Consequently the institutions require hard working, high commitment and competent staff members. Therefore the purpose of the study is to examine empirically the relationship between management practices on job satisfaction among middle level management at public institutions of higher learning in northern region. Specifically the dimension of management practices that was examined was leadership practices, communication practices and decision making practices. The respondents of the study are 133 management and professional staff members of various service schemes in grade 41 (under Malaysian Remuneration Scheme). The Pearson correlation suggested management practices have significant correlation with job satisfaction. Multiple regression analysis indicated leadership practices were the only predictor in explaining the respondents’ job satisfaction. The results of t-Test analysis also reveal gender has
significant difference to job satisfaction. Meanwhile Oneway ANOVA suggested age and tenure do not show significant differences on job satisfaction.