Rights statement: ©American Psychological Association, 2019. This paper is not the copy of record and may not exactly replicate the authoritative document published in the APA journal International Journal of Stress Management. Please do not copy or cite without author's permission. The final article is available, upon publication, at: 10.1037/str0000107
Accepted author manuscript, 343 KB, PDF document
Available under license: CC BY-NC: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Cash or kudos
T2 - Addressing the effort-reward imbalance for academic employees
AU - Hamilton, J.E.
N1 - ©American Psychological Association, 2019. This paper is not the copy of record and may not exactly replicate the authoritative document published in the APA journal International Journal of Stress Management. Please do not copy or cite without author's permission. The final article is available, upon publication, at: 10.1037/str0000107
PY - 2019/5/2
Y1 - 2019/5/2
N2 - This paper reports the findings of a study into the factors influencing psychological well-being of academic staff working in a U.K. Higher Education Institution. The study utilized the effort-reward imbalance (ERI) model as a framework to examine the balance between the effort academic staff commit to their work and the reward they receive in relation to the model's three reward systems: remuneration, career progression, and self-esteem. This study utilized qualitative methodology to investigate the experiences of academic staff engaged in predominantly teaching activities (n = 39). In particular, the focus groups considered the factors affecting the effort they commit to their work and the characteristics of work that help them feel rewarded. This allowed consideration of the ERI model's reward systems and exploration of a wider range of reward systems within an academic context. The findings reinforce the use of the ERI model for evaluating factors that influence the well-being of academic staff, providing insight into the extrinsic effort that academic staff commit to work, as well as recently evolved demands from student expectations and learning capability. Informal reward mechanisms, relating to student interaction and pedagogical impact, were found to have a prominent effect in helping academic staff feel rewarded for their work. This provides a possible explanation for academic staff overcommitment to their work in order to maintain informal sources of reward, in the absence of more formal institutional mechanisms. The limitations and implications for future research and practice, including possible interventions to restore effort-reward imbalance for academic staff, are discussed.
AB - This paper reports the findings of a study into the factors influencing psychological well-being of academic staff working in a U.K. Higher Education Institution. The study utilized the effort-reward imbalance (ERI) model as a framework to examine the balance between the effort academic staff commit to their work and the reward they receive in relation to the model's three reward systems: remuneration, career progression, and self-esteem. This study utilized qualitative methodology to investigate the experiences of academic staff engaged in predominantly teaching activities (n = 39). In particular, the focus groups considered the factors affecting the effort they commit to their work and the characteristics of work that help them feel rewarded. This allowed consideration of the ERI model's reward systems and exploration of a wider range of reward systems within an academic context. The findings reinforce the use of the ERI model for evaluating factors that influence the well-being of academic staff, providing insight into the extrinsic effort that academic staff commit to work, as well as recently evolved demands from student expectations and learning capability. Informal reward mechanisms, relating to student interaction and pedagogical impact, were found to have a prominent effect in helping academic staff feel rewarded for their work. This provides a possible explanation for academic staff overcommitment to their work in order to maintain informal sources of reward, in the absence of more formal institutional mechanisms. The limitations and implications for future research and practice, including possible interventions to restore effort-reward imbalance for academic staff, are discussed.
KW - Academic staff
KW - Effort-reward imbalance
KW - Overcommitment
KW - Psychological well-being
KW - Stress
KW - article
KW - career
KW - clinical article
KW - controlled study
KW - employee
KW - expectation
KW - human
KW - human experiment
KW - learning
KW - psychological well-being
KW - remuneration
KW - reward
KW - self esteem
KW - stress
KW - student
KW - teaching
U2 - 10.1037/str0000107
DO - 10.1037/str0000107
M3 - Journal article
VL - 26
SP - 193
EP - 203
JO - International Journal of Stress Management
JF - International Journal of Stress Management
SN - 1072-5245
IS - 2
ER -