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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal – Vol. 9, No. 8
Publication Date: August 25, 2022
DOI:10.14738/assrj.98.12735. Alharthey, A. M., Leong, Y. C., Said, M. F., & Chong, C. W. (2022). Gender's Moderating Role in Employee Satisfaction Determinants
and Retention in Saudi Arabia's Higher Education Sector. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 9(8). 227-250.
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
Gender's Moderating Role in Employee Satisfaction Determinants
and Retention in Saudi Arabia's Higher Education Sector
Abdullah Mulfi Alharthey
Ph.D, School of Business and Economics UPM, Malaysia
Lecturer; Faculty of Economics, Najran University, KSA
Yee Choy Leong
Ph. D, School of Business and Economics, UPM, Malaysia
Mohd Fuaad Said
Ph. D, School of Business and Economics, UPM, Malaysia
Choo Wei Chong
Ph. D, School of Business and Economics, UPM, Malaysia
ABSTRACT
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's higher education system suffers from academicians’
retention issues, besides low satisfaction. The employment situation in Saudi
universities has shown considerable instability for many years, as shown by the
high turnover rates among academic staff. The turnover rate is reported to be high
and needs to be addressed with the help of retention strategies. Thus, the objective
of this study is to identify and consolidate various relevant factors that have an
impact on employee satisfaction and retention in the education sector in KSA,
specifically in universities. This study also examines the mediating role of employee
satisfaction between three factors: compensation package, perceived
organizational support, and supportive work environment with regard to employee
retention and the moderating role of gender between employee satisfaction and
employee retention. To achieve the objectives, a survey strategy was applied to this
study because it is associated with a deductive approach. This study employs the
quantitative method, relying on primary data at the cross-sectional horizon. The
population of this study comprises the academicians who work within Saudi
Arabian universities. The online survey instrument was used to collect the data
from the target sample size, which was determined to be 384 academicians. The
study used structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the hypotheses developed in
the study. The study has found a supportive work environment has a positive,
significant relationship with employee satisfaction, as well as with employee
retention. However, there were no relationships between (compensation package,
perceived organizational support) and both employee satisfaction and employee
retention. The study found employee satisfaction significantly mediated the
relationship between a supportive work environment on employee retention. This
study showed the importance of employee satisfaction in order to assist
organizations in achieving employee retention. This study showed that the absence
of moderator factors does not affect the relationship between employee satisfaction
and employee retention.
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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal (ASSRJ) Vol. 9, Issue 8, August-2022
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
Keywords: compensation package, perceived organizational support, supportive work
environment, employee satisfaction, employee retention, gender, educational sectors,
Saudi Arabia
INTRODUCTION
The Kingdom Saudi Arabia has twenty-nine public universities and eight private universities
and institutions spread across the country [1] All the universities in the kingdom are governed
by the Ministry of Education. Additionally, because of the rising population, student enrolment
has increased, yet moreover, 60,000 students are unable to study at the kingdom's universities.
The King Abdullah Scholarship Program was founded in 2005 in response to the expanding
population and economic needs [2]. The program’s goal is to send Saudi students to pursue
their education in order to meet the job market need and the rising demand [1]. Despite the fact
that private universities started not a while ago, there is a good number of private institutions
that offer excellent higher education.
According to KSA’s ministry of education (2019), the KSA education mission is to provide
education to all KSA nations to raise the quality of education outcomes, promote the skills and
capabilities of students, and encourage creativity, and innovation. Arab News, 2019 has pointed
out that The KSA has spent nearly double the world's average gross domestic product on its
education. According to The database of World Bank [3], KSA education spending tripled from
the year 1970 to 2000. As for numbers of student enrolments, based to the General Authority
for Statistics in 2016, KSA received a total of 7.5 million students with 3.8 million in primary,
1.8 in secondary, and 3.6 million students in post-secondary. Since the KSA education program
was known for its religious content thus it is not surprising, according to Harris Jr [4] religion
studies took up nine periods per week on average at the primary school level in 2016, compared
to the remaining 23 periods per week for math, science, social studies, English, Arabic, and
physical education.
Saudi universities have been striving to be recognized as world-class institutions. The
educational systems of universities, on the other hand, have experienced significant obstacles
in becoming World-Class Universities, because of research productivity, accreditation, and
improving quality. Numerous educational researchers have confirmed that the research
productivity of a university contributed to improving the university’s ranking. Furthermore,
Almansour [5] presented a contrasting argument regarding the challenges facing Saudi
universities in producing research and becoming world-class universities; he stated that if the
Saudi higher education system is to achieve its stated goal of having its leading universities
recognized internationally as ‘world-class,’ then it must give urgent priority to its research
effort because global university ranking systems are heavily based on the quality and quantity
of an institution’s research activity and outcomes. On the other hand, the fact making research
productivity a challenge to Saudi universities is that there is a low number of articles published
and research performed by administrators, academics, and students [6].
According to Alharbi [7], education becomes ahead of the list for the KSA’s 2030 vision. The
government has made many steps to develop modern KSA education systems in order to
achieve Crown Prince Mohammed Salman's new vision of the country becoming one of the
world's most sophisticated economies and educational systems.