The study determined the role of personal values in doctor of philosophy (Ph.D.) students’ academic success in Tanzania. Specifically, it looked into the influence of openness to…
Abstract
Purpose
The study determined the role of personal values in doctor of philosophy (Ph.D.) students’ academic success in Tanzania. Specifically, it looked into the influence of openness to change values, self-enhancement values and conservation values on Ph.D. students’ academic success.
Design/methodology/approach
The study employed a cross-sectional survey design, in which 200 Ph.D. students from Tanzanian universities were involved by responding to a questionnaire. The relationship between the variables was determined by using structural equation modeling, and testing of the measurement model was done by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).
Findings
The results indicate that personal values influence Ph.D. students’ academic success. Particularly, openness to change values have an ß value of 0.209 and p value of < 0.001, self-enhancement values have an ß of 0.173 and p-value of < 0.001 and conservation values have ß of 0.339 and p-value of < 0.001.
Practical implications
In the quest to improve Ph.D. students’ academic success, universities and Ph.D. students should foster openness to change values, self-enhancement values and conservation values in Ph.D. students.
Originality/value
The results of this study extend the use of the Schwartz theory of basic human values in explaining the academic success of Ph.D. students in Tanzanian universities. Past studies that applied this theory were based on secondary school and college students. Moreover, based on the author’s knowledge, this study is one of the early studies to systematically look into the role of personal values on Ph.D. students’ academic success. Thus, the study contributes to the existing literature on personal values and academic success because previous studies on this subject could not examine Ph.D. students’ success in isolation.
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Al-Mansor Abu Said, Roziah Mohd Rasdi, Bahaman Abu Samah, Abu Daud Silong and Suzaimah Sulaiman
– The purpose of this paper is to develop a career success model for academics at the Malaysian research universities.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop a career success model for academics at the Malaysian research universities.
Design/methodology/approach
Self-administered and online surveys were used for data collection among 325 academics from Malaysian research universities.
Findings
Based on the analysis of structural equation modeling, the proposed model explained 48 per cent of the variance of academics’ career success. Specifically, the result shows that there are positive significant effects between organizational support, extraversion personality, person-job fit and academics’ career success. A full mediation effect of proactive behavior was established on the relationship between organizational support and career success. Overall, the results confirmed that the proposed model succinctly explains career success among academics in Malaysian research universities.
Research limitations/implications
The authors present a career success model for academics at Malaysian research universities. The study represents an important extension of previous research of which it tested the applicability of the career success theories and identified the key factors related to career success of academics based on the context of Malaysian research universities. Most current career success studies were conducted in the context of the Western culture or developed countries; therefore, the results based on the Malaysian sample provide strong evidence of cross-cultural comparability of the career success construct and model.
Practical implications
The findings provide implications to both individuals and human resource development practitioners on career success among academics. Practical interventions are suggested to assist individuals and organizations toward achieving career success. This study sheds some light on the effective management of the academics.
Originality/value
The authors propose a model of academics’ career success based on the context of Malaysian research universities.
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Silvia Pereira de Castro Casa Nova, Isabel Costa Lourenço and Renato Ferreira LeitãoAzevedo
This study aims to analyse the impacts of an institutional change process on a specific higher education institution in Europe and the trade-offs between the faculty perceptions…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to analyse the impacts of an institutional change process on a specific higher education institution in Europe and the trade-offs between the faculty perceptions of success and the organization image during this process, in light of the identity institutional theory.
Design/methodology/approach
The impacts of this institutional change are analysed and discussed based on in-depth interviews conducted with faculty members of the accounting department in which they reflected upon academic success vis-a-vis the career assessment system adopted, followed up by those faculty members’ answering an electronic questionnaire about organizational identity and image perception (Gioia et al., 2000).
Findings
Considering the individual perspectives, faculty are concerned about their vocations and aspirations, with feelings of apprehension and insecurity, perceiving the institutional goals as too high and potentially unattainable. By shifting the priority towards research, costs in terms of losing the institutional excellence in teaching might arise, which has been traditionally keen to the institute’s organizational identity and consistent with faculty’s perceptions of academic success.
Research limitations/implications
As in any research endeavour, some limitations might emerge. First, the authors addressed the context of a specific business school, in a European country. It is certainly true that culture plays a role in terms of both organizational and national levels. The authors acknowledge this as a limitation. Nevertheless, this research takes a “local” stance, the logic of academic evaluation and its impacts on institutional and individual identity formation processes is a worldwide phenomenon. Second, in defining the authors’ selection criteria, the authors excluded the possibility of other voices to be heard, both in the department itself and in the business school. Regarding the department, the authors argue that those are the ones who could influence future decisions, considering that they are the only ones eligible for the governing bodies under the institute’s regulations. Regarding the business school, adding other department(s) means adding other discipline(s) to the authors’ analysis with specific and different dynamics of researching, publishing and teaching, which also impacts the expectations regarding career and academic success.
Practical implications
First, before beginning an institutional change process, it is necessary to assess the vocations and aspirations of its members. The solution requires to reanalyse academic career premises and to reconsider the weights given to each academic activity, or furthermore, to offer more than one career path, so as to make it flexible for each faculty to follow their vocations and aspirations or to adapt to life demands. Second, in terms of organizational identity and image, the challenge is to minimize the gap between the construed external image and the internal identity, striving to achieve a balance between teaching, research, outreach and service.
Originality/value
Because of the nature of the academic work, the authors propose that the application of the theory should be preceded by a careful consideration of what is academic success. The misalignments studied and reported here reveal a multilevel phenomenon, wherein individual academic identities are often in conflict with the institutional image. The authors’ study entails a contribution to the application of the identity institutional theory to academic institutions.
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Amy C. Reynolds, Catherine O’Mullan, Anja Pabel, Ann Martin-Sardesai, Stephanie Alley, Susan Richardson, Linda Colley, Jacquelin Bousie and Janya McCalman
In the highly gendered academic sector, womens’ high participation rates have not translated into equal career progression with men. Existing literature suggests that early career…
Abstract
Purpose
In the highly gendered academic sector, womens’ high participation rates have not translated into equal career progression with men. Existing literature suggests that early career publication success is a good indicator of long-term publication success. This research is intended to provide a better understanding of whether the notions of success espoused by neo-liberal universities align with the subjective measures of what constitutes academic success for women ECRs (early career researchers).
Design/methodology/approach
The study examines the perceptions of nine successful women ECRs at an Australian university. It uses collaborative autoethnography with thematic analysis of participants’ self-reflective narratives on being a successful ECR.
Findings
Five themes were identified. One focussed on objective academic success, which included publications, grants and citations. The other four themes – living a balanced life, making a difference, labour of love and freedom and flexibility – offered more subjective views of success. These included: research making a contribution to society, undertaking research they are passionate about, having autonomy in their role and achieving work-life balance.
Practical implications
The findings demonstrate that women define success in broader terms than neo-liberal universities, and future studies should consider these divergent definitions. Universities committed to equality should understand differences in how women may approach career progress and incorporate this into support processes and in alignment of individual and university goals.
Originality/value
This research offers unique insights into the experience of post-doctoral employment for women in the academic environment and the factors influencing their success in this early career phase.
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This study aims to address a paucity of research into career success by exploring the impact of organizational context (“in-group” culture and the competitiveness strategy) and…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to address a paucity of research into career success by exploring the impact of organizational context (“in-group” culture and the competitiveness strategy) and individual variables (self-efficacy and goal orientation), on objective career success (academic position) and subjective career success (career satisfaction).
Design/methodology/approach
Survey data were obtained from 447 faculty members employed by Babeș-Bolyai University (BBU), the best-ranked Romanian higher education institution. For analysis, hierarchical multiple regressions analyzes were used.
Findings
The novel results of this quantitative analysis are that organizational context variables influence both subjective career success and objective career success. Academics who do not attain promotion have lower subjective career success and objective career success, as a result of the publish or perish university strategy. Self-efficacy has a positive impact on both success types, while goal orientation is for subjective career success a weak predictor.
Practical implications
Organizational efforts should be focused on improving academics career development especially for those teachers who are in the current position already for many years. The development of performance-driven career paths should be also considered for diminishing the impact of organizational variables.
Originality/value
This paper extends the knowledge concerning objective and subjective career success by revealing the important impact of contextual determinants, as it confirms the impact of individual self-efficacy in a university context and partially the one of goal orientation.
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Lynn Deeken, Amy Vecchione, Allison Carr, Shelby Hallman, Lara Herzellah, Natalia Lopez, Rob Rucker, Michael Alfieri, Deborah Tenofsky, Anne Moore, Nancy Fawley, John Glover, Bettina Peacemaker and Amy Pajewski
This paper aims to demonstrate the variety of ways institutions and their libraries approach student success both conceptionally and operationally.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to demonstrate the variety of ways institutions and their libraries approach student success both conceptionally and operationally.
Design/methodology/approach
Librarians from eight different institutions of higher education were given a series of questions about student success on their campuses and in their libraries. They responded with written essays describing their experiences and perspectives.
Findings
The contributed pieces in this second installment are collected together and a variety of ways the academic library engage with “student success” are discussed. Initiatives include high-impact practices, fostering academic rapport and creating a sense of belonging, experiential learning and creative spaces and professional development.
Originality/value
These examples help to observe what is happening throughout higher education and see potential paths forward at the institutions engaged in this work.
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Few research has addressed the factors that undermine people’s subjective perceptions of career success. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to further illuminate the issue of…
Abstract
Purpose
Few research has addressed the factors that undermine people’s subjective perceptions of career success. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to further illuminate the issue of career barriers in perceptions of career success for a specific group of professionals: academics.
Design/methodology/approach
This study adopts an interpretative-social constructionist methodology. Complementarily, it was employed a phenomenological method in data gathering and analysis – with the use of in-depth interviews and a theme analysis. The research was undertaken with a group of 87 Portuguese academics of both sexes and in different stages of their academic careers.
Findings
The findings pinpoint the existence of multi-level barriers encountered by the academics when trying to succeed in their careers. The interviewees mentioned particularly the organizational-professional career barriers pertaining to three general themes: poor collegiality and workplace relationships; the lack of organizational support and employment precariousness; and the career progression standards and expectations. At the individual life cycle level the interviewees referred to the theme of finding balance; at the same time, the gender structure was also a theme mentioned as an important career barrier in career success, particularly by the women interviewed.
Research limitations/implications
One of the limitations of this research is related to the impossibility of generalizability of its findings for the general population. Nevertheless, the researcher provides enough detail that grants the reader with the ability to judge of its similarity to other research contexts.
Practical implications
This research highlights the role played by distinct career barriers for a specific professional group: academics. This has implications for higher education policy-makers and for human resources managers in higher education institutions.
Originality/value
The current study extends the literature on career success by offering detailed anecdotal evidence on how negative work experiences might hinder career success. This research shows that to understand career barriers to success it is useful to consider multi-level factors: organizational-level factors (e.g. poor collegiality and workplace relationships); individual-level factors (e.g. life-cycle factors such as age/career stage); and structural-level factors (e.g. gender).
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Abdulrahman Alshaikhmubarak, Nuno Da Camara and Yehuda Baruch
This paper explores the impact of high-performance human resource practices (HPHRPs) on the research performance and career success of academics.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper explores the impact of high-performance human resource practices (HPHRPs) on the research performance and career success of academics.
Design/methodology/approach
Survey data was collected from 586 faculty members in the five largest public universities in Saudi Arabia.
Findings
The findings suggest that the HPHRPs of internal mobility and recognition had a strong impact on faculty members' career success and that these relationships were mediated by research performance. In addition, the study also found that the HPHRPs of training and recognition positively influenced research performance, while, surprisingly, the HPHRPs of participation in decision-making were found to have a negative effect on faculty members' research performance.
Originality/value
This study is original in combining research in human resource management (HRM) and career studies to develop a model that explains academic research performance and career success from the lens of HR practices. The results also provide leaders in Saudi Arabia's public higher education sector with empirical data on the impact of HPHRPs on academic research performance and career success.
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Syed Ali Raza, Wasim Qazi and Sara Qamar Yousufi
Academic adjustment is an important indicator which represents the students' academic achievements. The purpose of this investigation is to examine the fundamental role of academic…
Abstract
Purpose
Academic adjustment is an important indicator which represents the students' academic achievements. The purpose of this investigation is to examine the fundamental role of academic adjustment for the success of student's by considering the influence of several psychological, motivational and behavioral factors that affect the academic adjustment of students in the university which then influences the students' academic achievements.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were gathered through self-administered questionnaires from 409 students enrolled in a Business degree program in an academic institution by using a convenience sampling technique. Structural equation modeling (SEM) technique has been applied for analyzing the data and the proposed hypothesis.
Findings
Results obtained from partial least square (PLS)-SEM analysis indicated that academic adjustment is affected by psychological, motivational and behavioral factors and in turn influences the outcomes of success. Moreover, the findings also showed that psychological and motivational factors, directly and indirectly via partial mediation of adjustment, and behavioral factors via full mediation of academic adjustment influences the outcomes of success.
Practical implications
The study implies that it is important for university policymakers that they should give great priority to fully exploiting its potential to facilitate student's effective adjustment to academic life. Universities should pay attention to enhancing the academic study skills of students which leads to gains in academic achievement. Furthermore, universities should integrate self-regulated skills and provides motivation to students which is the biggest contributor toward adjustment as well as this study broadens the understanding of psychological capital as a resource that enhances academic adjustment.
Originality/value
Very little attention has been given to examining the role of academic adjustment in the success of students. Therefore, the present study makes two contributions to this research. First, the study broadens the understanding of psychological capital with the potential to strengthen adjustment with academic life in domains, i.e. academic achievement and institutional adjustment. Second, the study identifies which motivational and behavioral factors affect academic adjustment and achievement.
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Adena D. Young‐Jones, Tracie D. Burt, Stephanie Dixon and Melissa J. Hawthorne
This study was designed to evaluate academic advising in terms of student needs, expectations, and success rather than through the traditional lens of student satisfaction with…
Abstract
Purpose
This study was designed to evaluate academic advising in terms of student needs, expectations, and success rather than through the traditional lens of student satisfaction with the process.
Design/methodology/approach
Student participants (n=611) completed a survey exploring their expectations of and experience with academic advising. Principal axis factor analysis, multiple regression analyses, and analyses of variance were applied to student responses.
Findings
Six interpretable factors (i.e. advisor accountability, advisor empowerment, student responsibility, student self‐efficacy, student study skills, and perceived support) significantly related academic advising to student success. Differences emerged with regard to advisement of demographically diverse students.
Practical implications
The results suggest improvements in advising practices, particularly interventions focused on specific demographic populations.
Originality/value
The present study contributes to existing literature by expanding advising research beyond student satisfaction to explore how it influences student success. Additionally, results suggest a need for future research that further develops the concept and practice of quality academic advising.