Relationship between Faculty Members’ Participation in Administrative Decision-Making and the Level of Their Morale in the University of Isfahan and Medical Science University of Isfahan

Introduction: The main purpose of this survey was to study the relationship between faculty members’ participation in administrative decision-makings and the level of their morale in University of Isfahan and Medical Sciences University of Isfahan. The research basic questions focused on the relationship between faculty members’ participation in three decision-making dimensions namely educational, administrative and research with their moral dimensions including belongingness, identification and rationality. The rate of faculty members’ participation was studied based on such demographic variables as gender, specialty and rank, seniority and employment status. Methods: A descriptive and correlation coefficient research method was employed. The statistical sample consisted of 165 faculty members who were selected through a multi-stage sampling method from the two universities. The research data were collected through two researcher-made questionnaires: 1. participation in decision-making and 2. morale measurement questionnaire. The questionnaire reliability was measured with Cronbach-Alpha coefficient method. The questionnaires validity was determined based on content validity and internal validity was analyzed. Results: The results revealed that there was a relationship between the degree of faculty members’ participation in administrative decision-makings and their morale level. Participation in educational decision-makings correlated with high belongingness. Also faculty members’ participation in administrative decision-makings increased the rationality dimension of their morale. Also there was a relationship between the degree of faculty members’ participation in research decision-makings and the identification dimension of their morale. A significant difference between the degree of faculty members’ participation and demographic variables was not observed. Conclusion: A significant difference was observed between the levels of faculty members morale based on their seniority. The highest degree of faculty members’ participation in administrative decision makings was in the area of research and the least rate of participation pertained to educational decision-makings. Furthermore, the ranking of the three dimensions of morale in the sample showed that the level of their morale with respect to rational dimension was higher and was lower with respect to belongingness. Key words: Decision Making; Decision Making, Organizational; Universities; Faculty