Satisfaction, work involvement and R&D performance

The purpose of this study was to investigate which are the concepts of Social Identity Theory that explain the dispersion of research performance. Regression models were applied on data of ten National Research Council (CNR) institutes of Piemonte, a region in North Western Italy. Results show that there is a good positive correlation between research performance and job satisfaction (r=0.55). Moreover the 72% of total variance of job satisfaction is explained by work involvement. The influence of job satisfaction and work involvement on research performance places the strategic role of human resources management. If the problems are underestimated, a lack of interest in the work carried out in public research organisations can arise. The therapies that are proposed are the adoption of a total quality approach, including a suggestions box, quality circles and improvement/project groups.