Abstract This research measures and compares work satisfaction levels of academic accountants at research-oriented schools and satisfaction levels of academic accountants at non-research-oriented schools. Research-oriented schools are defined to be schools which offer a doctorate degree in accounting. Self-administered questionnaires probing satisfaction with 22 work dimensions were used; 164 usable responses were received, 60 from respondents at research-oriented schools and 104 from respondents at non-research-oriented schools. Satisfaction levels of respondents from doctorate-granting schools are found to be significantly higher in all dimensions investigated than the satisfaction levels reported by faculty at other schools. Demographic data are reported for the two groups of respondents, and correlation analysis is used to identify significant relationships between demographic variables and overall work satisfaction. A multivariate analysis of variance is employed to investigate the interaction of significant demographic variables and research vs. non-research schools (independent variables) with overall work satisfaction (the dependent variable). No significant interactions are found, leading to the conclusions that (1) differences in demographics do not, alone, explain the higher satisfaction scores reported by faculty members at doctorate-granting schools, and (2) the research activity is a positive element in job satisfaction of accounting faculty.
Seiler et al. (Sat,) studied this question.