# Introduction ietnam is a country with characteristics in the political system and employment structure -The Social Republic. Vietnamese educational system is of great importance to the development of the country and is a matter of great concern to society, especially academic university education (Mai, 2011). An issue of determining whether a university, college or school succeeds is its human resources, with the core of its motivating policy to mobilize the intellectual efforts and continuous innovation of its lecturers (Selesho & Naile, 2014). Vietnamese lecturers of universities, colleges have high professional qualifications and good skills; many lecturers have been trained abroad (Hoang, Tran & Pham, 2018). Study facilities have been upgraded and invested with modern equipment serving lecturing and study missions; the number of students has increased in both quantity and quality. Therefore, motivation enhancement task is one crucial step in labor-management mission as well as one important indicator forming the success of every organization to boost the internal power of employees to the utmost in completing the proposed plans (Ha, 2015). On the other hand, reality also showed that some lecturers have not been passionate about their job, resulting in the nonfully completed working energy . According to Sandhya and Kumar (2011), the salary was one important motivation to push workers to contribute more. To lecturers, the salary was one fundamental part of their total income in paying daily expenses; moreover, salary influences a lecturer's position in their family, organization, or society (Ofoegbu, 2004). High salary motivated lecturers to work harder in self-studying and self-improving in an academic major for upgrading the training quality of one university when an organization or a university applied a reasonable salary regulation as the foundation to identify the fairest salary for every lecturer as well as to persuade them in working value, payment, respect, evaluation, and encouragement. The viewpoint on social welfare as well as regulations on standard salary in Vietnamese public universities is different from the international. In capital countries, workers are paid fair according to the personal capacity, working efficacy, in which payment regulation in each company or university is different (Matsunaga, 2015). In Vietnam, a social republic country, salary distribution as well as social welfare division is affected by the viewpoint "salary is based on working capacity"; the final stage is "work is based on working capacity, salary is based on personal need"but this stage has still been in theory (Murray, 1988). How much workload is performed will be transferred into the equivalent salary; in other words, official-lecturers at public universities, colleges have been paid in terms of the definite salary rank without any distinction among the big-scale or small-scale universities; huge-numberof-student or limited-number-of-student universities (Nguyen & Le, 2011). This payment rank somehow affected the working motivation of lecturers at public universities and colleges in Vietnam. This paper focuses on how the salary and social welfares affect the working motivation of Vietnamese lecturers by analyzing the life history of 2 Vietnamese Socialist-policy lecturers (public-university lecturers): one had worked from the early years of changing the social policy (from 1975s, when the Socialist Republic of Vietnam was founded) and one has graduated from the 2018-new education system policy. # II. Working Motivation of Lecturers from Other Countries Russell (1984) emphasized the need for proper recruitment and fair treatment for training. Van de Vrande, De Jong, Vanhaverbeke and De Rochemont (2009) emphasized the need to help employees see the latest trends and techniques in the industry, enabling them to promote their innovations and applications at work. Thompson & Gregory (2012) confirmed the relationship between motivation and human resource attraction. Kovach (1987) pointed out ten factors that influence motivation, in which job satisfaction is more important when income increases and higher wages are more significant in low-income groups. Employees of the Kwara State Government, Nigeria, were dissatisfied with their physiological needs (e.g., salary) (Gunu, 2003). Thus, Karwai (2005) argued that as long the human basic needs (or lower-order motivators) remain the major problem of workers in Nigeria, the quest for money which is the ultimate means of acquiring goods and service through whatever means (e.g., corruption, fraud, thuggery, militancy, robbery) would remain the order of the day and as such, a serious societal problem. A significant relationship was established between motivation and employees' punctuality to work, motivation and indolent behavior, motivation, and attitude to work, motivation, and fraudulent behavior motivation and absenteeism (Isaac, 2008). Buelens and Van den Broeck (2007) found that women were often motivated to work by salaries and good relationships within the organization. Besides, the analysis results showed that older employees were less likely to leave the organization. They wanted to work in an environment that was sympathetic, supportive, and less motivated by the salary factor. Moreover, management was considered to be a particularly important factor in explaining the number of hours worked and the commitment to the job. Rahardja, Moeinand Lutfiani (2018)'s study on lecturers' working motivation showed that leadership, competence, and performance affected the performance of lecturers. Also, lecturer performance affected the improvement of accreditation institutions. The study by Bakar, Mohamad and Sharmeela-Banu (2015) showed that workplace diversity, workplace recognition, and rewards and work-life balance had a positive effect on job satisfaction among female lecturers, while workplace environment had no significant effect on their job satisfaction. In general, previous studies found that leadership, salary policy, social welfare, fair treatment, recognition, and competence in an organization, including educational institutions, strongly impacted the working motivation of lecturers or the employees. # III. Working Motivation of Vietnamese Lecturers Vu ( 2007), with a study on how to motivate managers in government organizations, presented the importance of managers in motivating employees to work and proposed about working motivation, motivating factors, motivational measures for employees and managers themselves in government organizations. Nguyen (2013) confirmed four factors significantly affect employee's motivation to work, including salary and financial compensation, training and development opportunities, leadership style, and the relationship with peers. Pham (2015) studied the motivation of lecturers of Hanoi Tourism College to point out new requirements for lecturers in the new era. The proposals on this topic were also quite appropriate for the training and development of university lecturers in general, including the problem of challenging or stimulating effective work. In particular, the element of salary and social welfare was greatly appreciated for the practical value that it brought to employees. Nguyen (2013) when studying the motivation for public-officers to improve the operational efficiency of the state administration organization also asserted that: (1) reasonable salary; (2) assign jobs by the capacity; (3) identify the goals to be achieved by each employee; (4) create promotion opportunities; (5) building effective working environment; (6) recognize the contributions of subordinates; these factors must be considered to motivate and maintain the attachment of employees to the organization. In general, it could be confirmed that the studies and articles on Vietnamese lecturers' motivation have been mentioned recently. However, the studies only stopped in terms of reflecting on the situation and proposing solutions. The in-depth study of each factor has not been exploited and analyzed clearly. Acquiring the findings of the previous study, this study would analyze the salary and social welfare -factors that were considered to have a positive impact on the working motivation of Vietnamese lecturers. To better understand the salaries and social welfare of Vietnamese lecturers over the long history since the founding of the country (since 1975, when Vietnam ended the war and reunified the country), it is possible to analyze as follows: In the period before 1986, Vietnam was in a subsidy period. In the situation that the country had just escaped from the war, the lives of the people were still facing many difficulties and deprivations; the Vietnamese economy was still in a state of bureaucracy and subsidies. The education issue had more important than the resistance period, but nothing had been innovated or breakthrough, except the application of the 12-year general education program in the country. Although higher education had developed, the enrollment process was too strict (13 types of enrollment priorities and the main priority for children with meritorious services to the revolution, and the capacity issue had not been paid attention). Lecturers' salaries and social benefits were calculated to equal to other economic sectors, sometimes paid in cash, sometimes in rice, cloth, food, and depending on the current economic situation of the working area. With the salaries being too low, not enough to cover their lives, many lecturers had to do extra jobs after school hours such as trading in the market, drivers, sewing, etc. to have more income (Kokko & Tingvall, 2007). Because of this shortage and economic hardship, scientific research had hardly been conducted. Therefore, the data sources of research on salary, social welfare, and working motivation of lecturers at this stage are not available. But the situation in this period reflects one thing, despite the economic and social difficulties, Vietnamese lecturers had never given up their careers. They always tried to overcome difficulties and successfully fulfill the training tasks. Since the introduction of market-oriented economic reforms after 1986 (Doi Moi period): Vietnamese education, health, and social insurance had a spectacular transformation. According to the current applied salary regulation in terms of Decree 204/2004/ND-CP dated on December 14 th , 2004 by Vietnamese Government and Decree 76/2019/ND-CP related to salary regulation towards officers (public universities/colleges/ schools' employee) and army force. Organizations under the management of the Socialist policy system include governmental agencies, ministries -branches at all levels, army force, public educational organizations (universities, colleges, intermediate schools, schools, preschool). The employees for these organizations are called Publicofficer (working for state government agencies and ministries) and Official-lecturer (working for public educational organizations). Income regulations are based on Internal expense regulations at the organizations (Vietnamese Government, 2004; Vietnamese Government, 2019), the average monthly income of an official-lecturer can be converted as follows (see Table 1). # Table 1: The payroll of official-lecturer applying from July 1 st , 2020 (unit: VND) Official-lecturers are entitled to a lure allowance equal to 70% of the current salary (according to the payroll set by the Party and State competent authorities) plus a leading position allowance or extra-seniority allowance apply to actual working time in regions with extremely difficult socio-economic conditions not exceeding five years (60 months). Official-lecturers are entitled to a monthly allowance based on the base salary and actual working time in areas with exceptionally difficult socio-economic conditions as follows: -The level of 0.5 applies to people who have worked in areas with extremely difficult socio-economic conditions from full 5 years to less than ten years; -The level of 0.7 applies to people who have worked in regions with exceptionally difficult socio-economic conditions from full ten years to less than fifteen years; -The level of 1.0 applies to people who have worked in areas with extremely difficult socio-economic conditions from full fifteen years or more. Particularly, official-lecturers receive a careerbased preferential allowance equal to 70% of the current salary (according to the salary table issued by the Party and State competent authorities) plus the leading position allowance, seniority allowance. Over frames (if applicable) apply to the actual time. # G ) In general, compared to before 1986, lecturers' salaries and social welfares have been greatly improved. This was both an opportunity and a challenge for teachers to adapt to the new requirements of education. This study would focus on clarifying the opportunities and challenges affecting the working motivation by analyzing the impact of the salary and social welfare policy for Vietnamese official-lecturers. IV. # Method a) Participants This article reported part of a research project that explored the factors affecting the working motivation of Vietnamese lecturers. Participant selection in this study drew on purposeful sampling that provides access to knowledgeable people with in-depth knowledge and expertise about particular issues (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2011;Dornyei, 2007). That is to say; the study sought to examine the Vietnamese official-lecturers' working motivation based on salary and social welfare policy, so the priority was given to experienced lecturers who entered their careers before 1986 -the period that Vietnam was still in the subsidy education system, and after 2018 -the period that Vietnam implemented the new general education program and policy. After analyzing the responses from 20 lecturers in the first stage of a questionnaire plus their answers in the second stage of a short interview (5-10 minutes), eight were officially selected as participants for the study. Among them, three had worked for private universities for about ten years (since 1990) and transferred to public universities (since the 2000s); three had 5 -8 years of experience working for a university abroad and then moved to Vietnam (from the 1980s to present). The remaining two, one started teaching in higher education from the 1980s to the present only in Vietnam; and one started the teaching career in university since 2018. The stories about their engagement in the university as well as the Vietnamese education system, and their experience, knowledge for salary and social welfare policy were selected as data for this study. The participants, S and V (pseudonyms), were two lecturers who were trained and worked from two different periods of Vietnam (before 1986 and after 1986). Both are teaching for public universities in Vietnam, S has seniority in teaching for 36 years (from 1984), and V has seniority of teaching for two years (from 2018). S has experience and understanding of work spanning two periods (before and after 1986), not only that, S was born and raised in a family of lecturers with a teaching tradition; V has an understanding of work since 2018 (when Vietnam conducted an educational policy restructure).About the participants' academic background, S is a professor and currently is holding the educational manager position of a public university; and V is a Ph.D. student. Through their profiles, it could be said that S and V are two cases which can provide rich data about the impact of salary and social welfare to the working motivation of the recent official-lecturers compared to the previous period lecturers (in subsidy period -before 1986) in Vietnam. # b) Data collection and analysis Data for the large project were collected from diverse sources, including interviews, using questionnaires, and learning journals. Given the scope of the current article, data collection was based on teachers' life history as a method (Goodson & Sikes 2001; Zhao, Coombs, & Zhou, 2010). This method, according to Zhao, Coombs, & Zhou (2010), generates 'not only deeper knowledge about the person that the teacher is but also about the social reality that they have to act and operate within'. Data collected from stories told by lecturers are collectively known as 'socially read biography', which provides a significant source of information, and knowledge about lecturers, their teaching, and the socio cultural context. The stories also have a powerful effect on lecturers' professional development and identity construction (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). From the perspective of Vietnamese education's restructuring, the employment of life history method in this study is in line with the social approach to narrative research, which enables participants to express their voice, and attitudes towards social problems such as opposition, poverty and marginality (Chase, 2010). On the premise of the life-history method, data were collected by in-depth, unstructured interviews (Goodson & Sikes, 2001). More specifically, four faceto-face informal interviews in total were conducted with each participant for the large project. This is the most commonly used strategy when the life story is employed as a method of data collection in educational research (Goodson & Sikes, 2001). Data presented in this article were extracted from the second interview, in which one lecturer recalled how he worked in the period before the year of 1986 and the change in educational policy after 1986.One lecturer recalled how he studied and knew about the educational policy from after 1986 to 2018 and the present, especially about the impact of salary and social welfare to their working motivation. In other words, they were encouraged to reflect on how they were treated in the educational policy as well as what they did and how they felt as a lecturer. They were invited to talk about, alongside their position in the university setting and how their working motivation was. With the lecturers' consent, all the interviews were recorded for transcribing in the later stage of data analysis. Although the participants were proficient in English (S has 6.0 IELTS score and V has 6.5 IELTS score), the interviewing language was Vietnamese because they felt more confident at communicating ideas in their mother tongue. The strategy of using the mother tongue for interviewing is recommended when researchers and participants share the same language background (Pavlenko, 2007). As the two interviews were conducted in the Vietnamese language, all the details in their stories used as quotes in this article were translated from Vietnamese into English by the author, who is fluent in both languages. Then, the final script was sent to the translation office for proofreading before analyzing it. As data collection was underpinned by the method of life history, deliberate strategies were employed for data analysis of the participants' narratives (Barkhuizen, Benson, & Chik, 2014;Goodson & Sikes, 2001). In other words, the stories told by each lecturer during the interview were interpreted to highlight the foci of the study, i.e. official-lecturers' struggle for changing the salary and social welfare policy. The stories told by each participant were considered and analyzed in the broader context of Vietnamese education and social life rather than examined how they were told. The analysis is made based on the change in salary and welfare policy issued by the Vietnamese Government. At the same time, by gathering ideas about career engagement during two important historical periods to compare with the new policies that the Education industry enjoys, which come from two lecturers representing two Vietnamese official-lecturer positions. Their work motivation and job satisfaction will be analyzed in parallel with the policies and laws promulgated by the Vietnamese Government to have uniformity and standards. Beyond their experiences and working interests, the narratives provided in-depth data of their struggles for changing the salary and social welfare to maintain the living standard in the wider society. So, data analysis also focused on this aspect. Though separately presented as two cases, the two participants' profiles (the stories about their engagement in the educational policy) were examined together based on creating the working motivation for official-lecturers. Therefore, the analysis based on the data collected will aim to assess the impact of salaries and social benefits on the working motivation of Vietnamese officiallecturers. V. # Findings # S: 'I had to do many different jobs besides being a lecturer.' S started working as a lecturer since the subsidy period in Vietnam. He shared the difficulties of the lecturers during this period in a funny way, but no less dissatisfied and arduous: Before 1986, I taught at a university in the morning, went to the market to sell fruit in the afternoon; from 6pm to 10pm, I switched to selling noodles at the sidewalk. I had to do many different jobs besides being a lecturer. Sometimes, I sold things to my students. They respected me in class, but when they saw my appearance in the market, they were impolite. Students at that time, if going to university, surely their family backgrounds were very rich. Therefore, the fact that they showed their negative attitude to me, who was selling made me sometimes anxious. Although the salary policy was not enough to ensure life and sometimes did not receive respect from students, S never thought that he would give up his lecturer job. By 1986, when the Vietnamese economy changed to a market-oriented economy, the Vietnamese education sector made prosperous progress. S shared that since 1986 was the period when lecturers were given more attention, salaries and social welfare was much improved than the previous period. Although still at a low income compared to the subsidy period, as well as when compared to other industries (business, trade and banking). But the improvement in salary policy according to teaching seniority, academic position, working position, especially the formula for calculating the salary by the coefficient (base salary is 22,500 VND (~1 USD)/month -according to Decision No. 203). When the Government promulgated a new salary policy and increased teacher income, we were delighted. Besides, more universities were established, entrance examinations were less severe, and the profession of lecturers was taken more seriously. It can be said that this innovation of the Vietnamese government has brought about a flourishing for education. But despite the increase in salary each year, social welfare was also improving, S and his colleagues still could not feel secure relying on just one source of income. S said that when the lecturer's salary and social welfare policies changed, he did not work many different jobs, but switched to visited-teaching at different universities. However, he was still in a formal school. Teaching as a visited-lecturer at many universities helped S's income became more stable and gradually gained his reputation in the higher education sector at that time. Up to now (in 2020), the base salary for lecturers has increased to 1,490,000 VND (~64 USD)/ month (according to Resolution 70/2018/QH14), but according to S's comments, it is not satisfactory for lecturers. Many public universities are financially autonomous and improve the welfare of their faculty. The quality of lecturers' life has been significantly improved. However, this improvement comes from the fact that lecturers not only teach at one university, but also teach in many schools, and even receive more media and newspaper jobs to increase their income. S is both a lecturer and a consultant on television and social media. Many times, S was asked for his perseverance with the teaching profession; he shared that: Relatives: Do the salary of the lecturer a month enough to live? S: Actually, it is only enough to pay the rent. Relatives: Why don't you quit your job and run a business? S: Every job has different challenges. I have been with this lecturer for over 30 years, although the salary and welfares received are nothing. But I am proud to have trained many generations of excellent teachers in the region. Relatives: I don't understand it? Working with the low income, why do you have to stick like that? Not only the work pressure, but also the social pressure (expectations and social awareness) about the salary and the social welfare policy of lecturers seem to have been an obstacle which emphasizes the working motivation of not only S, but also the other officiallecturers. With the career's enthusiasm, S has never chosen to quit or change to another job with a more stable income. S states that' when you do your best for your job, you will receive corresponding rewards. Salaries and social welfares are important in motivating lecturers to work, but that's not all. But in a sense, the salary and social welfare from an institution (university) is the minimum condition that determines whether the lecturer is permanently attached or not.' # V: 'I have tried my best to become a lecturer because of the professional values, not for earning high income.' V started teaching at the university in 2018. To become a lecturer at a public university in Vietnam, V had to undergo two recruitment periods: one was for recruitment official-lecturer examination, and the other was for the lecturer's input capacity assessment at the applied public university. V shared that: 'Standing on the university lecture hall and exchanging with students on knowledge and skills has been my dream since I was an undergraduate student. I did my best to reach that goal. I am not afraid of the entrance examination, nor am I worried about the modest salary of a public university lecturer. What I need at work, is the leadership's recognition of my efforts.' In the beginning, when choosing a career as a lecturer, V also encountered other negative social opinions about the profession, as S. V's family did not agree with the teaching career. They wanted V to be a teller at a bank with a stable income, not as precarious and as meager as a lecturer. V asserts that it is the competence and the dedication that determine the source of income for a career. Therefore, V decided to pursue as a lecturer. 'My father did not agree when I chose to be a lecturer, he wanted me to become a banker. He analyzed that the income and social welfare of Vietnamese lecturers were too low, might not be enough for living expenses. His friend was a lecturer, and he quitted the job because of the low income. Therefore, he completely opposed my career choice. I did not conceive like my father. I think that the income of a career is determined by the working capacity and working attitude, so it cannot impose such prejudice.' According to V's opinion, the leadership skills of managers are very important in motivating lecturers. Besides, V also does not deny the importance of salary and social welfare policy to the working motivation of lecturers. When working as a lecturer, V wants a minimum salary of 10,000,000 VND (~400 USD)/month to cover living expenses, as well as receive full welfares such as insurance, vacation days and reward policy. But the reality is not as expected when V's base salary was 1,490,000 VND (~ 64 USD), salary coefficient is 2.34 (level 1), plus some other life support expenses extracted from the social welfare fund, deduced that V's monthly income ranges from 4,000,000 VND to 5,000,000 VND (~200 USD) -the level of salary is only enough to meet the monthly living expenses of a worker living in Ho Chi Minh City. Regarding the social welfare of the lecturer position, V is entitled to the preferential allowance for vocational training, the teaching allowance, the pay for overtime teaching and other allowances as prescribed by the Government; enjoy training and retraining policies to raise their professional knowledge and skills; and entitled to annual leave, including weekends, New Year holidays, public holidays prescribed by Vietnamese law. 'At first, I was quite disappointed when I received my first salary. I deserved such a higher salary and social welfare. My friends who teach at international universities have an average income of 1000 USD/month. The current salary makes me not giving 100% of my capacity to the organization. As for the social benefits, apart from the basic benefits specified in the legal documents, I do not receive any other benefits. Compared to Vietnamese international universities, they have policies to sponsor summer tourism for lecturers or mental care packages.' Not only V, but many other young lecturers are also not very satisfied with the starting salary paid by public universities. V repeatedly sent petitions to university leaders to propose a raise for young lecturers. But the results are not feasible because the policies that stipulate the salary and social welfare for officiallecturers are prescribed in the legal documents, they can only be received and processed gradually, cannot be processed immediately. 'My colleagues and I have repeatedly asked for a raise. But the director board answered us that the lecturer's salary not only depends on the salary coefficient and the base salary but also on the number of years of teaching, the number of published scientific works, the professional attachment, the academic degrees, achievements achieved inside and outside the organization. That times, I realized, I have tried my best to become a lecturer because of the professional values, not for earning high income' V's awareness changed after the director board explained the increased process of salary and social welfare. Not only have high qualifications, high qualifications can receive adequate salaries but also many other factors impact. V accepts and understands that his efforts do not only depend on competence and qualifications, but also the level of professional attachment and dedication to the profession. # VI. # Discussion The stories told by the two participants provide insight into the impact of salary and social welfare policy to the working motivation of Vietnamese officiallecturers. This aspect is an integral part of their identity construction as well as their professional development. In other words, the findings of the study highlighted the two participants' working motivation as a lecturer under the different period, but similar in low income and limited social welfare throughout their professional life span. Their struggles to seek a raise in salary and social welfare policy situated both within two different periods of Vietnam. Although the salary and social welfare of each lecturer experienced were not necessarily similar to each other, their destiny was eventually the same. According to the concept of lecturer's working motivation, their working motivation due to the salary and social welfares are analyzed as follows: Vietnamese official-lecturers' working motivation is strongly influenced by the legal documents issued by Government. As S's experiences throughout the history of changing payroll policies and supporting social welfare for lecturers, as well as V's struggle to demand a salary increase that is appropriate to his capacity, governmental policy on labor, salary and other social issues regulated in legal documents affects academic organization activities, especially in a tight connection with working motivation creation mission for officiallecturers. These regulations are the foundation for public universities to build and employ their application; therefore, this performance, somehow, is affected by numerous regulations in legal documents and under-law documents from the Vietnamese government: Educational Laws, Reward Laws, regulations on holidays and days off, lecturers' working policy. This regulation is the basement for public universities to construct specific regulations for lecturers and this influences lecturers' working motivation (Ministry of Education and Training, 2010). Currently, in Vietnam, newly established universities and colleges willingly pay a higher salary and attractive additional social welfare policy to those well-qualified lecturers cooperating as lecturers or supervisors (Pham, 2015). Therefore, public universities should provide attractive rewarding policies to keep lecturers to be committed to the substantially adequate. Salary is one competitive point in attracting potential candidates with highly academic professional skills; as a result, there should be an acceptable salary and social welfare policy in attracting lecturers. The use of the university's autonomy fund could be a solution to overcome the limitations in the implementation of salary policy for lecturers issued by government legal documents. Besides the financial account provided by governmental financial sources, all university activities could be performed due to additional income from tuition fees and other services. The number of students enrolling was one key point to increase university financial capacity, resulting in higher prestige and position at different times (Tran & Mai, 2008). In recent academic years, the number of students trained in different faculties has changed and increased substantially. This training scale proved the attraction and prestige of public universities in gaining from parents' and students' trust (Nguyen, Nguyen & Phan, 2018). However, one obstacle was lecturers had to work with higher pressure due to the more classes. Some lecturers taught extra classes compared to the standardized periods. For newly accepted lecturers, completing such a large of classes as well as selftraining for further enhanced lecturing experience; therefore, less time is spent on enhanced lecturing quality and scientific research (as V's case). Consequently, public universities should have more solutions to decreasing lecturing time so that lecturers have more time investing in lecturing and researching, as one logical working motivation policy with high efficiency. It is necessary to balance the rewarding and salary raise policy according to the professional competence and dedication of the official-lecturers. The regulations for salary ranking level and salary increase mainly depended on personal experiences and working efficiency at the time of assessment did not completely rely on evaluation on working capacity, deadline completion throughout the whole process. Those with senior experiences received a higher salary whereas newly accepted lecturers with low salaries due to short-term working experience were not fully satisfied. For newly accepted lecturers, the salary is low (as V's case). In contrast, their personal needs are rather high, so the director board should include another salary term as a solution to support this specific lecturer group. Although the director board was fully conscious of the importance of annual reward activity directly affecting lecturers' working psychology and efficiency (as S), there was a rather tight connection between spiritual and material rewards to unify the features, forms and individual types with clear and obvious regulations for lecturers to master. To upgrade monetary reward motivation, the director board should provide more solutions to fix the weak points as well as more concern on reward policy. Compare to the salary and social welfare of lecturers in other countries, Vietnamese lecturers' salary is much lower. In the USA, the average salary for a lecturer in 2017-2018 according to the American Association of University Professors was 56,712 USD (Academic Position, 2019). In the UK, according to Times Higher Education's Report, the average salary for a lecturer is £ 32,194 (~41,754 USD) per year in the United Kingdom (Indeed, 2020; Time Higher Education, 2017). A lecturer in Australia typically earns around 113,000 AUD (~74,914 USD) per year; in Japan is around 1,220,000 JPY (~10,934 USD) per month and in China is around 36,300 CNY (~5,167 USD) per month (Salary explorer, 2020). Meanwhile, a Vietnamese lecturer has an average monthly income of 7,000,000 -8,000,000 VND (~300 USD). Munyengabe, Haiyan, Yiyi and Jiefei (2017) found that the motivational level of lecturers was satisfactory mostly affected by promotions and salary. The level of working motivation was interpreted as satisfactory mostly affected by financial reward. Mustapha (2013) also stated the financial reward had a positive correlation with job satisfaction and working motivation. Ogundipe, Osawe and Oshinyadi (2016) showed that increase salaries tended to increase the level of lecturers' working motivation. The salary was remuneration for work motivation, and lecturers engaged in jobs to receive a salary which could be used to acquire necessities and the satisfaction of physiological needs. Because there are so many criteria to consider the official-lecturers' salary and social welfare increases, meanwhile, working duration and level of dedication are the main criteria. As can be seen, official-lecturers were not quite satisfied. Therefore, it is necessary to balance the rewarding and salary raise policy according to the professional competence and dedication of official-lecturers # Passion in lecturing and creating the profession value triumph over the income pressures and difficulties. Previous studies have found salaries, social welfare, leadership skills, working environment, and remuneration based on the capacity of lecturers have a strong impact on their working motivation (Bakar, Mohamad & Sharmeela-Banu, 2015;Kovach, 1987;Pham, 2015;Rahardja, Moein & Lutfiani, 2018;Vu, 2007). This study uncovered a new aspect, the passion for the profession and the desire to affirm the professional value for the country in the new context which affects the working motivation of Vietnamese official-lecturers. S has many opportunities to give up his career, but he chose to stay, despite the social stereotypes about the lecturer. V clearly understood the situation of low official-lecturer income, but still decided to choose; he also struggled to raise the salary and realized the factor determining salary is not only professional competence. Salary and social welfare policies have a strong impact on working motivation, but that is only one aspect. The dedication in teaching and efforts to contribute to the society and the educational community is a content that needs to be strengthened and promoted to create effective motivation for lecturers. The goal of education is to train people, not to make money. Besides, this finding proves that the spirit of studiousness and efforts to contribute to the profession, especially the teaching profession of Vietnamese people from past to present, always exist and show no signs of recession. This view is in line with the current Vietnamese educational viewpoint: both promoting the national cultural identity and developing in the direction of integration and strengthening. Therefore, this is an essential content that can be included in the curriculum of lecturers, students of the pedagogical university and social media, in which society has a better understanding of the lecturing profession. # VII. # Conclusion and Implications Through the stories told by the two participants about how they experienced the salary and social welfare policy as an official-lecturers as well as how their profession and working motivation were perceived, the present study explored the two-way interaction between working motivation and salary and social welfare policies on the lecturer profession. Although their experiences in the salary and social welfare policies were different, they eventually experienced the same destiny. Thanks to the working passion and the desire to contribute to the profession, and promote the national identity, the Vietnamese official-lecturers have overcome the difficulties encountered. There is no denying the impact of factors such as salaries or social welfares affected on the working motivation, but that is not all. If the passion for the profession is not sustained, strengthened and nurtured, it will not be possible to create positive changes in the profession. With these findings, public university's salary and social welfare policies were encouraging and stimulating lecturers for university development. This supported lecturers to gain motivation, passion and commit a long-term connection with the university. The director board should prove their care by investing more on salary and reward policies towards the need for lecturers, as suggested: 1) Add on compulsory additional social welfares based on governmental regulations: All insurance types are followed paid. 2) Support optional additional social welfares: The University Labor Organization and Director Board provide private additional social welfares to lecturers, particularly: ? Occasional financial support for special events (sickness, pregnancy, wedding, funeral). Besides, there existed some limitations that should be improved in the current study: these working motivation creation methods could not completely meet the requirements of all lecturers. This finding resulted in the unsatisfactory overall outcomes from the impact factors above. Gender differences in lecturers' satisfaction with salary and social welfare policies were not clarified. Besides, the capacity of lecturers has not been deeply concerned to get the corresponding salary. The salary calculation was also based on the number of working years. Although this mechanism is consistent with the Government's legal documents, it has not promoted the dedication and positive motivation for lecturers. 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