THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WORK CHARACTERISTICS AND SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING OF EDUCATIONAL ORGANIZATION MANAGERS AND EMPLOYEES.

Abstract

Aim: To empirically investigate the relationship between work characteristics and subjective well-being of managers and employees in educational organizations. Materials and Methods: Analysis of work characteristics was done using The Work Design Questionnaire (WDQ). The modified BBC Subjective Well-being scale (BBC-SWB) was used to analyze educational staff's well-being. The research data were processed using mathematical statistics: descriptive statistics (mean, std. deviation), Pearson correlation, and independent samples t-test. 345 respondents from the Central region of Ukraine participated in the survey. Results: Although educational staff had a generally positive assessment of work characteristics, there were certain disproportions in their assessments of individual work characteristics: work autonomy characteristics were rated lower than task characteristics, while social characteristics and work context characteristics were rated lower than knowledge characteristics. In addition, educational organization managers rated the vast majority of work characteristics higher than employees, which suggests a more favorable organizational environment for managers than employees. There were three work characteristics groups in the context of their associations with staff's subjective well-being: 1) work characteristics that had a positive statically significant relationship with both managers and employees' subjective well-being indicators; 2) work characteristics that had positive and negative statistically significant relationships with employees' subjective well-being indicators; 3) work characteristics that had positive and negative statistically significant relationships with managers' subjective well-being indicators. Conclusions: The obtained findings may be helpful for managers and employees of educational organizations in promoting staff's subjective well-being and increasing educational organizations' effectiveness.