Journal of Comparative Research in Anthropology and Sociology (Jun 2023)
The quality of working life of academics: A scoping review
Abstract
This article aims to explore the scientific literature on the quality of the working life of university teachers. For this purpose, a scoping review methodology was used, which involved the systematic search of articles by relevant words on five databases. The theoretical perspective is the Theory of Duality of Technology formulated by Orlikowski (1992), so the analysis of the eligible articles was done following the three components of the theory: institutional properties, technology, and human agents. The results reveal rich literature regarding the intensive application of the neoliberal doctrine in universities and the effects on the working life of teaching staff. The literature also addresses the issue of systematically disadvantaged professionals within universities, such as women, early career professionals, and minorities. Closely related to institutional properties, the position of teaching staff as human agents is also analysed; most of the articles explicitly propose measures at the institutional level and/or approaches at the individual level to reduce the undesirable effects of the new public management. The subject addressed in a small number of articles is technology, its relationship with institutional properties, and its influence on the quality of the professional life of academics.
