Supported or stressed while being assessed? How motivational climates in UK university workplaces promote or inhibit researcher wellbeing

Weinstein, Netta ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2200-6617, Haddock, Geoffrey ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5293-2772, Chubb, Jennifer, Wilsdon, James and Manville, Catriona 2023. Supported or stressed while being assessed? How motivational climates in UK university workplaces promote or inhibit researcher wellbeing. Higher Education Quarterly 77 (3) , pp. 537-557. 10.1111/hequ.12420

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Abstract

Academic culture now places high expectations on researchers to demonstrate research productivity alongside teaching, leadership and knowledge exchange. In two studies of researchers across career stages in UK higher education institutions (HEIs), we examined workplace climate within academic departments as (1) supportive of researchers' needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness, (2) publish-or-perish focused and (3) hyper-competitive. In Study 1 (multiwave from 2018 to 2020), need support predicted researchers' lower turnover intention 2 years later, even when controlling for concurrent need support, and career and economic conditions. In Study 2, need support correlated with academic well-being (lower job strain and turnover intention, greater job satisfaction) in a nationwide sample of 2951 researchers. Study 2 found that need support related to improved, and a hyper-competitive motivational climate related to undermined, well-being. Results were mixed for publish-or-perish climate. Performative demands can have deleterious effects on researcher well-being.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Psychology
Publisher:	Wiley-Blackwell
ISSN:	0951-5224
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 January 2023
Date of Acceptance:	17 January 2023
Last Modified:	22 Aug 2023 16:15
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/156372

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