Introduction: Satisfaction Around the World?

The initial working title of this book was I Can’t Get No....: Job Satisfaction Around the Academic World. Advice from the CAP Survey. Intended as a play on the words of the Rolling Stones’ classic 1965 hit, the publishers, however, felt that the editors were showing their age and that few readers born after 1960 would get the “joke”. Nonetheless, the degree that academics are contented with and committed to their scholarly careers is increasingly becoming a key ingredient in social, cultural and economic well-being everywhere. A vibrant academic profession attracting the best and brightest of the next generation may indeed be what gives a nation a competitive edge in a global knowledge-based economy. Hit tunes may come and go, but the importance of academics’ teaching and research efforts in producing highly skilled human capital and enhancement of innovation is an enduring feature of most if not all societies.