Abstract

Studies on how salaries and social welfare policies affect the working motivation of lecturers are areas of interest in education and human resource management Because of the differences in Vietnamese political regimes and sociocultural characteristics there are different salary and social welfare policies according to historical periods for officiallecturers Data for this article were collected through life-history interviews in which the two participating lecturers were encouraged to tell stories about their experience in salary and social welfare policies The findings of the study reveal that Vietnamese lecturers face many difficulties in terms of salary and social welfare to work well in their profession Salary and social welfare policies for official-lecturers are greatly influenced by the legal documents prescribed by the Government so many lecturers are not satisfied and have not devoted themselves Based on the findings the study emphasizes the need to adjust official-lecturer salary and social welfare policies based on the university autonomy fund Besides the issue of changing lecturers perceptions of professional values also needs to be considered and studied effective solutions for creating working motivation in the new educational context