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A Critical Look at Ourselves: Do Male and Female Professors Respond the Same to Environment Characteristics?

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Abstract

We examined the relationship between gender and both job satisfaction and research productivity using data from 1,135 psychology faculty working in 229 academic departments. We found that gender differences in job satisfaction and research productivity were related to elements of the department (i.e., teaching orientation and structure). Overall, women reported lower levels of productivity than their male counterparts. Women also reported higher levels of job satisfaction in more teaching-oriented departments whereas men reported higher levels job satisfaction in more research-oriented departments. We suggest that these findings might be the result of gender differences in preferences with women preferring more socially-oriented positions and men prefer more “things/data”-oriented positions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management, School of Business, Montclair State University, Partridge Hall 322B, 1 Normal Avenue, Upper Montclair, NJ, 07043, USA

    Stacey R. Kessler

  2. University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA

    Paul E. Spector

  3. West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, USA

    Mark B. Gavin

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  1. Stacey R. Kessler
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  2. Paul E. Spector
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  3. Mark B. Gavin
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Correspondence to Stacey R. Kessler.

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Kessler, S.R., Spector, P.E. & Gavin, M.B. A Critical Look at Ourselves: Do Male and Female Professors Respond the Same to Environment Characteristics?. Res High Educ 55, 351–369 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-013-9314-7

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