Abstract
This article addresses the relationship between the work environment and the well-being of academic faculties in public Czech universities. It presents findings from a pilot study conducted at a Faculty of Arts at a major Czech university. The aims of the study were to describe the Faculty's work environment and to examine the impact of specific work environment variables on the well-being of academic employees. In total, 236 academics participated in the study. The results showed relatively high job satisfaction and high work engagement at all academic levels. The Faculty's organizational climate (measured using the Organizational Climate Measure; Patterson, Patterson, West, Shackleton, Dawson, Lawthom, Maitlis & Wallace, 2005) was defined by high autonomy and involvement in decision making, as well as relatively low pressure to produce. The Faculty's psychosocial work environment (measured using the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire II; Kristensen, Hannerz, Hogh & Borg, 2005) was defined by a strong social community and social support. Based on these findings, the authors suggest that the Faculty's work environment corresponds to the Humboldtian type of governance, defined by academic self-rule and a culture of collegiality, and they compare this type of governance with the market governance prevalent in Anglo-American contexts. The study contributes to the recent debates about national differences in academic governance by discussing how specific aspects of Humboldtian and market governance may contribute to well-being in academia.
Highlights
Over the past decade, organizational researchers have paid increasing attention to the quality of the work environment in universities and its impact on the well-being of the academic faculty (e.g., Bentley, Coates, Dobson, Goedegebuure & Meek, 2013; Houston, Meyer & Paewai, 2006; Fredman & Doughney, 2012; Winefield, Gillespie, Stough, Dua, Hapuarachchi & Boyd, 2003; Shin & Jung, 2013; Schulz, 2013)
The results showed that direct employee experience with the psychosocial work environment measured by COPSOQ II explained almost twice as much variance in job satisfaction as the perception of organizational climate measured by OCM
Research into academic governance indicates that the Czech public university sector is characterised by a unique mix of governance based on an academic oligarchy and an emerging market orientation (Dobbins & Knill, 2009; Pesik & Gounko, 2011)
Summary
Organizational researchers have paid increasing attention to the quality of the work environment in universities and its impact on the well-being of the academic faculty (e.g., Bentley, Coates, Dobson, Goedegebuure & Meek, 2013; Houston, Meyer & Paewai, 2006; Fredman & Doughney, 2012; Winefield, Gillespie, Stough, Dua, Hapuarachchi & Boyd, 2003; Shin & Jung, 2013; Schulz, 2013) This surge of interest has been commonly linked to the ‘rise of the neoliberal university’ (Davies, Gottsche & Bansel, 2006) in Anglo-American countries, i.e., the new form of academic governance characterized by the neoliberalization of higher education. The details of all the measured dimensions are described in the Methodology section
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