The emphasis on quality education has brought new challenges to Chinese universities and university faculty. Work engagement plays a critical role in improving university faculty's job performance and education quality. Applying the job demands-resour...
The emphasis on quality education has brought new challenges to Chinese universities and university faculty. Work engagement plays a critical role in improving university faculty's job performance and education quality. Applying the job demands-resources model, this study investigated the impact of work autonomy, perceived organizational support, workload, role conflict, and emotional exhaustion on the work engagement of university faculty in China. Especially, this study focused on the mediating role of emotional exhaustion.
This study adopted a quantitative research design, data collection was conducted through an online survey. Structural equation modeling was employed with a sample of 521 university faculty members in China to examine the structural relationships among variables and the mediating effects. The following research findings were obtained.
Firstly, work autonomy, perceived organizational support, and workload have significant positive effects on university faculty's work engagement. Role conflict and emotional exhaustion have significant negative effects on work engagement.
Secondly, the analysis of mediation effects reveals that emotional exhaustion significantly mediates the positive effects of work autonomy and perceived organizational support on work engagement. Emotional exhaustion significantly mediates the negative impacts of role conflict on work engagement. While Chinese university faculty's workload positively impacts their work engagement, emotional exhaustion negatively mediates this relationship.
The theoretical significance of this study lies in that it contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the job demands-resources model and its application to the context of university faculty in China. The study highlights the need for a more nuanced classification of job demands within the model, taking into account the varying nature of specific job demands and contexts. The study also enriched the model by identifying the significant mediation effects of emotional exhaustion.
The study provided practical suggestions for promoting the work engagement of Chinese university faculty. Universities in China should take steps to guarantee work autonomy among university faculty and enhance organizational support. Meanwhile, universities should assign proper workload to faculty members, and alleviate role conflict among them. Besides, universities and university faculty should actively prevent and address the issue of emotional exhaustion. Interventions should be leveraged holistically to mitigate emotional exhaustion and promote the work engagement of university faculty.