The morale and satisfaction of midlevel administrators: Differentiating the constructs and their impact on intent to leave

Midlevel administrators in higher education play an important role providing direct support to students, serving as liaisons to external constituencies through outreach and development efforts, and implementing policies and procedures within human resource, purchasing and compliance activities. Although this group has exhibited high satisfaction levels, turnover rates are also high. Grounded in theories of organizational turnover, the purpose of this study is to explore the affective responses of midlevel administrators to their worklife and to determine the impact of those responses on their intention to leave. In addition, the study attempts to distinguish between the affective responses of morale and satisfaction.; The combination of demographic and worklife variables which contribute to the morale and satisfaction of midlevel administrators at a large public Doctoral Research Extensive university was examined through survey research. The survey instrument included 73 items measuring perceptions of worklife, morale, satisfaction, and intent to leave. Structural equation models were developed to test the relationships between the constructs.; The findings indicate that morale and satisfaction can be measured and defined as separate constructs and do differ in their impact on intent to leave. The worklife variable department relations, which included communication and teamwork, had a positive impact on morale and satisfaction and a substantial indirect effect upon intent to leave. Working in the unit which coordinates research and external funding requests had a negative impact on morale.; Additional analyses reconceptualized intent to leave as two separate variables: intent to leave the position and intent to leave the institution. The results indicate that satisfaction has a stronger impact on intent to leave the position while morale has a stronger impact on intent to leave the institution.; These findings suggest that the morale and satisfaction of midlevel administrators are multidimensional constructs which appear to impact behavior, in this case, the intent to leave the position and/or the institution. As such, they are important to monitor and measure.