Academic citizenship and wellbeing: An exploratory cross-cultural study of South African and Swedish academic perceptions

Abstract

Academic citizenship is, conceptually speaking, closely related to organisational citizenship behaviour, as both concepts can be regarded as consisting essentially of personal co-worker and organisational support behaviours. Academics across the world operate in widely divergent settings in different socioeconomic and political situations and higher education environments.Such differing circumstances might be expected to have a bearing on the priorities that academics face in different countries and the ways academic citizenship is understood. This article uses a mixed methods approach to analyse perceptions of academic citizenship and employee well-being in one Swedish and one South African university which operate in starkly different socioeconomic circumstances. The findings of the exploratory study suggest that despite wide-ranging differences in socioeconomic environments between the two countries, Coldwell, Papageorgiou, Callaghan and Fried Academic citizenship and wellbeing 2 there is a high degree of common understanding of the form and substance of academic citizenship and its bearing on well-being.

Lecturers’ Perceptions of Factors that Attract Talent in a Ghanaian Higher Learning Institution

“…The participants further mentioned specific needs such as development in their area of academic interest, opportunities to improve their academic qualifications, the availability of promotional opportunities and rapid career advancement opportunities, as important for their career development. Although the universities had sufficient research infrastructures available [59], higher education management should create career development opportunities, such as mentorship, networking, transnational collaboration, specific training and development for teaching, and promotion opportunities that will assist young scholars to become professors and researchers of excellence [see 18,60,19]. Some participants also indicated the benefit of the possibility of obtaining further qualifications as part of being an employee at the university.…”

“…Although the concept of career management has received great research attention over the years, the career development of lecturers has been neglected. Available research shows that the careers of lecturers can be advanced through a variety of methods, such as mentorship [16], networking [17], transnational collaboration [18], training and development [19], opportunities for further education and promotion opportunities [15]. However, other research also pointed out that career development opportunities in universities are hampered by a lack of both government funding [20] and organisational infrastructure [21].…”

Factors relating to the attraction of talented early career academics in South African higher education institutions

“…The participants further mentioned specific needs, such as development in their area of academic interest, opportunities to improve their academic qualifications, the availability of promotional opportunities and rapid career advancement opportunities, as important for their career development. Although the HEIs had sufficient research infrastructures available (see Singh, 2015), higher education management should create career development opportunities, such as mentorship, networking, transnational collaboration, specific training and development for teaching, and promotion opportunities that will assist novice scholars to become teachers and researchers of excellence (see Ansmann et al, 2014;Botha & Potgieter, 2009;Coldwell et al, 2016;Schulze, 2015;Thomas et al, 2015). Some participants also indicated the benefit of the possibility of obtaining further qualifications as part of being an employee at a HEI (Bhatt, 2011).…”

“…Available research shows that the careers of academics can be advanced through a variety of methods, such as mentorship (Thomas, Lunsford, & Rodrigues, 2015), networking (Ansmann et al, 2014), transnational collaboration (Coldwell, Papageorgiou, Callaghan, & Fried, 2016), training and development (Botha & Potgieter, 2009), opportunities for further education (Schulze, 2015;Tessema, 2009) and promotion opportunities (Bhatt, 2011). Other research also pointed out that career development opportunities in HEIs are hampered by a lack of both government funding (Busch & Ledingham, 2016) and organisational infrastructure (MacGregor, 2009).…”

The Coming of a Perfect Storm? "Forced Privatisation" and Precarious Labour in South African Academia

“…A relentless search for "efficiency" and corporatist cost-centric logics are, however, seemingly also at odds with the goal of innovativeness, as a focus on these logics increases the risk of closing the "white space" upon which creativity relies (Cardiani, 2015;Leydesdorff and Ivanova, 2016). The citizenship values of academics (Coldwell et al, 2016) are not typically aligned with corporatist logics associated with maximising output from dwindling resources. It is concluded that those exposed to casualisation and precarity in South African academic work might currently face a "perfect storm" of budgetary pressures across the sector combined with the diminishing power of labour federations under increasing political populism.…”