What is the key to researchers' job satisfaction? One response is professional identification mediated by work engagement

The job satisfaction of academics and researchers has been investigated recently, but the influence of different levels of social identification (organizational, workgroup and professional identification) has never been examined. The aim of the present study is to examine the relationship between different levels of social identification, work engagement and job satisfaction. Our study involved researchers from a French public institute who responded to an online survey (N = 383). The results show that different levels of social identification are positively correlated with researchers' job satisfaction, and that workgroup explains the most variance, followed by professional and finally organizational identification. This study is also the first to show the mediating role of the dedication dimension of work engagement on the relationships between professional identification and job satisfaction. The implications of the findings for future studies in research institutes and universities are discussed.