Baltic Journal of Economic Studies (Dec 2024)
METHODOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES OF REMUNERATION REGULATION IN THE FIELD OF HIGHER EDUCATION
Abstract
At this time, a significant number of issues have emerged in the field of higher education in Ukraine, many of which are related to the remuneration of scientific and pedagogical workers. The chronic underfunding of institutions of higher education gives rise to the necessity to reduce expenditure by reducing labour costs, which are financed from a special fund. This is due to the significant proportion of labour costs in total costs. In fourteen randomly selected higher education institutions in 2023, labour costs constituted between 63.0% and 86.4% of total costs. Concurrently, the distinctive characteristics and importance of the work of scientific and pedagogical professionals provide justification for acknowledging its undervaluation. This, in turn, presents the challenge of enhancing the remuneration and motivation of teachers to enhance the efficacy of their work. This necessitates the establishment of a methodological foundation for the regulation of remuneration in higher education and the advancement of the extant organisational and economic mechanisms, which have largely evolved organically. The methodological foundations are based on the conceptual provisions, which represent a complex set of initial attitudes that reflect the main ideas and the general direction of actions for the formation of a holistic mechanism for the regulation of labour remuneration in higher education. Consequently, the mechanism must comprise a component that enables higher education institutions to adjust the size of their labour costs. The construction of a system of conceptual provisions enabled the formulation of the purpose, tasks, objects, functions, and principles of regulation of labour remuneration. The objects of regulation are defined as follows: firstly, social and labour relations are regarded as a general object; secondly, the payment of labour is identified as a direct object, with individual elements of this being subject to influence; and thirdly, employees of higher education institutions are designated as a final object. The results of the analysis of regulation tasks and wage functions led to the formation of wage regulation functions. In turn, these formed the basis for determining the principles of wage regulation, which serve to regulate the practical activity of wage regulation. In addition to the general principles of management (targetedness, planning, systematicity, control, etc.), specific principles of wage regulation are defined. In the system of methodological principles, the methods occupy a central position. These are further subdivided into methods of state, branch, and local regulation. The structural components of the methodological foundations of wage regulation are interconnected and form a complete system.
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