Career shock of female academics during Covid-19: can the transactional stress model offer coping strategies?

Abstract

PurposeThrough addressing female academics in four public universities in Egypt, the author of this paper aims to answer the question: How do female academics cope with the career shock resulting from the spread of COVID-19?Design/methodology/approachThe author used a qualitative research method through semi-structured interviews with 32 female academics from four public universities selected from among 26 public institutions of higher education in Egypt. Thematic analysis was subsequently used to determine the main ideas in the transcripts.FindingsThe findings assert that the following three strategies: heroism, cronyism and temporalism are used by female academics in the Egyptian context to cope with the career shocks they feel during the time of COVID-19. The findings assert that female academics try to reassert their professionalism in their academic duties and familial obligations even after the spread of COVID-19. Moreover, they tend to use forms of cronyism behaviour to alleviate the effect of the career shock, mostly via hypocritical phrases. Furthermore, the thought that COVID-19 is a temporary stage helps female academics to actively accept their challenging new work conditions.Originality/valueThis paper contributes by filling a gap in human resources management and higher education in which empirical studies on the career shock of female academics have been limited so far.