The Relationship Between Academic Well-Being and Territoriality in Italy

Benedetto Torrisi () and Giuseppe Pernagallo
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Benedetto Torrisi: University of Catania

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, 2022, vol. 161, issue 2, No 3, 413-431

Abstract: Abstract The multivariate nature of academic well-being makes difficult to provide a single definition, and finding adequate measures is a difficult task. We accomplished this purpose using job satisfaction and work engagement as measures for academic well-being thanks to the results obtained from the project PIR 2012 “Productivity of Italian Researchers” and the results of the questionnaire UWES-17 administered to Italian scholars. The territorial element appeared to be important to analyse properly the phenomenon of well-being; in particular, we used two notions of territoriality. One aimed to gather information relatively to the perception of the Italian academic system with respect to foreign systems and was mainly concerned with job satisfaction. The other one aimed to gather information at the regional level, comparing the three dimensions of work engagement by macro-areas. The results of our research indicate that there is a lower perception of the Italian system respect to foreign countries because of insufficient career opportunities and an inadequate administrative and bureaucratic structure. This reveals dissatisfaction of Italian academic workers and low academic well-being. From the second analysis we learn that there are significant differences among the engagement scores obtained in different Italian macro-areas but, most importantly, the mean value of engagement in all the areas was only “average”. Low levels of engagement may be the result of low levels of well-being. This empirical analysis offers precious data and suggestions for the Italian policy maker and, in general, for policy makers of similar countries. Enhancing the satisfaction and the engagement of academic workers is fundamental to prevent detrimental outflows of skilled human capital and to attract foreign skilled human capital.

Keywords: Academic well-being; Brain drain; Human capital; Job satisfaction; Territory; Work engagement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1007/s11205-020-02309-8

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