An Examination of the Correlation Between Job Satisfaction at Chinese Public and Private Universities, Mentorship, And the Function of College Academic Libraries

Abstract

This paper is an analysis of the relationship between mentorship, guidance and job satisfaction between academic libraries of Chinese public universities, private universities and China's college academic libraries. It is proposed that the key organisational support variable is mentorship, the intervening mechanism is guidance and that job satisfaction is a context specific outcome variable represented by public-university satisfaction, private-university satisfaction and academic-library satisfaction. The conceptual framework used for the study are 6 direct relationships which are mentorship-satisfaction in public university, mentorshipsatisfaction in private university, mentorship-satisfaction in academic library, guidancesatisfaction in public university, guidance-satisfaction in private university and guidancesatisfaction in academic library. The design is quantitative, cross-sectional and the scales are structured 5-point likert scales. Since raw survey data were not supplied with the manuscript requested, the numerical results presented in this paper are derived from a simulated data set of 420 cases to show the method. The sample is evenly divided between public university environment and private university and academic-library environments. The results of the Reliability study are satisfactory as the mentorship and guidance and job satisfaction scales have good Cronbach alpha internal consistency. The results of the correlation analysis reveal positive relationships between the main constructs, and the multiple regression analysis results highlight that mentorship and guidance significantly impact all three satisfaction outcomes. In addition, the indirect effects via guidance are also positive in the demonstration model. The size of the coefficient is different between the public, private and library contexts, indicating a possible different relationship between satisfaction and developmental support in institutional contexts. The results are compared with the international mentoring literature and research on university libraries in China. This manuscript provides a framework for analysis for future fieldwork and points out the questions of measurement or sampling, institutions or methods which must be addressed before submitting this manuscript.