Academics’ job-related stress and institutional commitment in Hong Kong universities

Abstract

Recent developments in higher education have placed greater emphasis on performance and accountability and raised concerns about increasing levels of stress among academics. Stress not only influences academic productivity but may also affect institutional commitment, which is key to guaranteeing academics’ organisational stability, identity and performance at the university. This study examines how the stress of academics working in Hong Kong, which has a highly competitive and performativity oriented higher education system, relates to an institutional commitment to their universities. Through the use of a methodology that handles endogeneity bias, this relationship was analysed using socio-demographic data, information on characteristics of the institutional environment, and academic-work-related data from the Academic Profession in Knowledge Society (APIKS) questionnaire conducted in Hong Kong in 2017/2018. The main finding of this study is that the more the job becomes a strain, the greater the academic’s institutional commitment to the university. We argue that stress was positively associated with greater institutional commitment due to Hong Kong’s competitive working culture, as no statistically significant differences in stress and institutional commitment were found among those in different academic fields of knowledge and universities. Analysis of determinants of stress and institutional commitment showed that independence in research, interest in current work, availability of career opportunities, and collegial decision-making reduced stress and increased institutional commitment. Conversely, pressure to obtain external funding and excessive administrative work increase stress and reduce institutional commitment. Based on these findings, universities should institute balanced policies that promote research autonomy, collegiality and flexible career opportunities in academic work, whilst designing new ways to more congenially integrate the ubiquitous demand for external funding into academic life, and minimising administrative procedures which are not attuned with creative academic environments. © 2019, The European Higher Education Society.