Research on the mechanism of academic stress on occupational burnout in Chinese universities

Abstract

Abstract In recent years, with the unremitting advancement of higher education reform, academics have been experiencing stress associated with conducting scientific research. In this study focusing on university teachers in China, we adopted a stepwise regression method and reviewed related literature to construct a mechanism of academic stress and occupational burnout. Specifically, we tested job satisfaction and relative deprivation as mediating and moderating variables and conducted empirical research on 1239 teachers from 15 universities in eastern, central, and western China. Our findings show that: (1) academic stress has a significant positive effect on occupational burnout; (2) job satisfaction has a partial role as the intermediary agent between academic stress and occupational burnout; and (3) relative deprivation positively moderates the relationship between academic stress and job satisfaction, indicating that teachers in universities and colleges are also affected by relative deprivation and the perception of inequity. These findings have significant value in the management of higher education and academic research.

Keywords

• Academic stress
• Occupational burnout
• Job satisfaction
• Relative deprivation
• Equity theory
• Jod demand-control model