Wait! What’s my job? Role ambiguity and role conflict as predictors of commitment among faculty

Purpose

Faculty play a unique role in universities performing duties along the three fronts of teaching, research and service. While it might be teaching that contributes most to the bottom line of a small university, it is often research by which faculty merit is judged. This study explores the relationships between role ambiguity, role conflict and commitment (affective, normative and continuance) as mediated by job satisfaction among faculty members.

Design/methodology/approach

A sample of 133 faculty members at a US-accredited university in Lebanon served as the basis for this study. The faculty members completed a survey covering scales on role ambiguity, role conflict, commitment and job satisfaction in addition to demographic variables.

Findings

We find that a decrease in role ambiguity strengthens affective and normative commitment but weakens continuance commitment. Structural equation modeling indicates that job satisfaction partially mediates the relationship between role ambiguity and affective commitment, while not mediating the relationship between role ambiguity and normative and continuance commitments. Similar findings hold for job satisfaction as a mediator in the relationship between role conflict and commitment.

Originality/value

Based on statistical modeling, this work (1) puts forth a revised scale for organizational commitment tailored to academia and (2) provides guidance to higher education institutions in terms of the differential impacts on faculty commitment that stem from reducing role-ambiguity versus role-conflict. Managerial recommendations focus on improving normative and affective commitment through the design of policies to reduce role conflict among faculty.