Academic leadership and organizational climate: mediating pathways to faculty satisfaction in a reform-oriented higher education system
This study examines how faculty-level academic leadership influences academic staff members' general job satisfaction through selected dimensions of organizational climate within the reform-oriented context of Vietnamese higher education. A sequential exploratory mixed-methods design was employed. Following 15 exploratory interviews, survey data were collected from 239 academic staff members at Vietnamese public universities. Covariance-based structural equation modelling was used to test the effects of Building Community and Enabling and Steering leadership on general job satisfaction through formalization, workload, innovation and flexibility and performance feedback. Enabling and Steering leadership had a significant positive direct effect on general job satisfaction and an additional positive indirect effect through organizational climate. It reduced perceived formalization and enhanced innovation and flexibility and performance feedback. Building Community leadership influenced innovation and flexibility and performance feedback but had no significant direct effect on job satisfaction. Among the climate dimensions, lower formalization and stronger performance feedback were associated with higher job satisfaction. The study demonstrates how adapted academic leadership dimensions operate through distinct organizational climate pathways in a reforming higher education system. It also provides contextually validated measures of academic leadership and organizational climate for research in Vietnamese universities.