3
Abstract
The global transformation of the higher education sector over the past decades has brought
significant changes in the academic profession, impacting occupational health and well-being of
university faculty. This habilitation thesis focuses on occupational well-being among university
faculty in the Czech Republic within the broader context of the market-oriented changes in higher
education in Czech public universities. The thesis presents seven empirical studies that all address
the issue of occupational well-being among academic faculty. Each of the studies focused on
specific facets of occupational well-being, including job satisfaction, job stress, burnout, and work
engagement, and examined key factors in the academic work environments that influenced faculty
well-being. The main aims of the studies were: 1. to examine levels of occupational well-being in
a large sample of Czech university academics, 2. to identify job resources that positively impact
faculty occupational well-being, 3. to identify job demands that negatively impact faculty
occupational well-being. The empirical data for the studies came from three successive research
grant funded by the Czech Science Foundation awarded to the author of this thesis. To provide
complex, multifaceted analysis of faculty occupational well-being, the studies combined diverse
methodologies, ranging from advanced statistical analyses of larger-scale questionnaire data to
qualitative analysis of open-ended responses and collective biography data.
Together, the presented studies indicated that, compared with available international data,
Czech faculty experienced relatively high levels of occupational well-being, involving high global
job satisfaction and work engagement, and relatively low levels of job stress and burnout. While
potentially unexpected, these findings can be effectively explained within the framework of the
Job Demands-Resources theory (JD-R) and Self-determination theory and, relatedly, by the
continuing presence of the traditional model of academic self-rule in Czech public universities,
defined by high levels of vital job resources, namely autonomy and influence over work and
collegial support. Consistent with the “dual processes” hypothesis formulated by the JD-R,
positive facets of occupational well-being (job satisfaction, work engagement) were significantly
related only to job resources, not to job demands. Therefore, while our studies showed that Czech
faculty were exposed to several prevalent negative factors, these appeared not to significantly
reduce their job satisfaction and work engagement. Regarding the negative facets of occupational
4
well-being, the most significant predictor of both stress and burnout among faculty was workfamily
conflict (WFC), which had both direct effect and also mediated effects of quantitative work
demands on stress and burnout. Finally, using The Competing Values Model, our findings showed
that the prevalence of key job resources and job demands was significantly related to four different
types of organizational cultures at academic departments. Of the four identified cultures (selfactualizing,
performance, collegial, fraternity), the self-actualizing culture appeared to be the most
beneficial for faculty well-being. The practical implications of the presented findings for
occupational well-being interventions are discussed in the general discussion, together with
directions for future research.
5
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................................6
Introduction and author’s commentary ......................................................................................7
Summary of research aims ............................................................................................................13
List of original publications ...........................................................................................................16
Author’s contribution....................................................................................................................18
Study I: Keeping marketization at bay: The quality of academic worklife in Czech universities...........20
Study II: A self-determined profession? Perceived work conditions and the satisfaction paradox
among Czech academic faculty..........................................................................................................53
Study III: Burnout among university faculty: The central role of work–family conflict.......................90
Study IV: Occupational well-being among university faculty: A Job Demands-Resources model ......119
Study V: Prevalence and forms of workplace bullying among university employees .........................154
Study VI: Bullying as intra-active process in neoliberal universities ................................................187
Study VII: Competing values at public universities: Organisational cultures and job demands‐
resources in academic departments .................................................................................................212
General discussion ....................................................................................................................246
Practical implications..................................................................................................................250
Limitations and future directions..................................................................................................254
References ..................................................................................................................................257
6
Acknowledgements
I would like to use this opportunity to thank to my academic collegues, to institutions, and to my
family who supported me in my scholarly endeavors.
Firstly, I would like to thank to professor Ivo Čermák for his continuous support which started
during my PhD studies conducted under his supervision. He has been a great inspiration, both for his
expertise in qualitative methodology and for his moral character. I also greatly value that he has given me
the opportunity to defend my habilitation thesis at my alma mater – the Masaryk University. Although my
academic career later brought me to other places and institutions, I have continued to highly value my alma
mater for its excellent quality, progressive spirit, and high levels of standard, both in academic performance
and in academic culture.
Secondly, I am deeply grateful to professor Bronwyn Davies with whom I had the privilege to
cooperate and to spend time at the University of Western Sydney in Australia and later at other places,
including the US and Italy. She has been a great support and inspiration for me not only because of her
ingenious and influential scholarship, but also because of her wonderful personality.
Thirdly, I am greatly indebted to my current employer, the Institute of Psychology (IPS) at the
Czech Academy of Sciences, which has supported me from the early, postdoc staged of my academic
careers and has given me the opportunity to pursue my research interests and to build up my academic
career. I appreciate the high levels of academic freedom and collegiality, but also job security and career
advancement opportunities that the IPS has provided me – more so as I know that these vital job resources
are becoming less available in the current academic world.
Fourthly, I would like to thank to all colleagues in our research team at the IPS, and particularly to
Jiří Mudrák, Petr Květon, and Kateřina Machovcová, whose participation, creativity, and engagement have
been vital for success of all my/our projects. I would also like to thank to all our research participants who
were willing to participate in our studies and thus enabled their existence.
Fifthly, I am grateful to many fellow academics and senior colleagues who trusted in my abilities
and offered me the opportunity to participate in their excellent research projects and book publications or
who supported my international mobility, particularly to (listed alphabetically) Agnes Andenæs, Marek
Blatný, Cyril Brom, Hana Havelková, Lenka Kollerová, Dennis Mumby, Jiří Mudrák, Libora OatesIndruchová,
Maryam Omari, Daniela Pauknerová, Dorte Marie Søndergaard, Lea Takács, Michael Walton.
Last, but most importantly, I would like to thank to my family, and particularly to my husband for
his continuous and exceptional support of my academic activities. I continue to be amazed by his resilience,
wisdom, and optimistic approach to life and I am grateful that he shares these remarkable qualities with me.
I also thank to my two wonderful children for who they are.
7
Introduction and author’s commentary
This habilitation thesis presents results of seven empirical studies that the author has
published as either the first author or as the corresponding author in peer-reviewed journals. All of
these studies address the issue of occupational well-being in the higher education sector, each of
them examining a specific aspect of occupational well-being, including job satisfaction, job stress,
burnout, and work engagement. Specifically, the author and her co-authors have conceptualized
and researched occupational well-being as involving three interrelated dimensions: cognitive
evaluations of one’s work (job satisfaction), work-related positive emotions (work engagement),
and work-related negative emotions (job stress, burnout) (see also e.g., Bakker & Demerouti, 2014;
Kinman, Jones, & Kinman, 2006; Mudrák et al., 2018). The articles jointly provide a
comprehensive analysis of the three dimensions of occupational well-being and its predictors in
academic psychosocial work environments. The thesis’s concern with occupational well-being
responds to a number of key questions in current organizational research and practice, such as:
“How can we improve employees’ working conditions and enhance their well-being at work?”,
“What are the main occupational stressors experienced by employees and how can they be
reduced?”, or “How can we support employees’ work engagement and satisfaction at work?”
These questions delineate the focus of this habilitation thesis, while being applied to the specific
occupational sector of higher education and the academic profession.
Research on occupational well-being among academic faculty is an interdisciplinary
research area embedded primarily in the discipline of Occupational Health Psychology, yet also
closely related to other psychology disciplines, including Social Psychology, Positive
Organizational Psychology, and Higher Education Studies. Occupational Health Psychology
(OHP) is a psychology discipline that has emerged as a specific research field in late 1980s and
early 1990s (Schaufelli, 2004; Schonfeld & Chang, 2017). OHP applies psychology theories and
methods to the organizational context in order to enhance employees’ mental health and well-being
and to create healthy work environments (Schonfeld & Chang, 2017). Briefly defined, OHP “is
concerned with the well-being (i.e., health and safety) of people in the workplace” (Beehr, 2019,
p. 1). Traditionally, OHP has focused on issues of occupational and environmental hazards at
work, work safety, and work stress (Gatchel & Kishino, 2019). Among these topics, the issue of
work stress has become prominent over the past decades, primarily due to fast economic growth,
8
deregulation of labor markets, technical developments, work intensification and social acceleration
in western societies that are generally believed to increase the incidence of work-related stress and
reduce employee well-being (Korunka & Kubicek, 2017).
Another discipline that has occupational well-being as its major focus is Positive
Organizational Psychology. In comparison to OHP, Positive Organizational Psychology (POP)
explicitly aims to provide knowledge on positive, salutary aspects of work and organizational life
(see e.g., Bakker, 2013; Donaldson & Ko, 2010; Martín-del-Río et al., 2021). Therefore, rather
than examining how to reduce the incidence of negative work experiences, such as work stress,
POP investigates how to enhance employee positive work experiences (e.g. work engagement)
and positive traits (e.g. psychological capital), and how to promote positive organizational factors
in the workplace (e.g. positive organizational culture) to facilitate these positive working
experiences (Bakker, 2013). The accent on the positive side of organizational life is consistent with
POP’s roots in the movement of positive psychology; a movement that can be defined as “an
umbrella term used to stimulate and organize research, application, and scholarship on strengths,
virtues, excellence, thriving, flourishing, resilience, flow, and optimal functioning in general”
(Donaldson & Ko, 2010, p. 177). Specifically, POP refers to “the scientific study of positive
subjective experiences and traits in the workplace and positive organizations, and its application
to improve the effectiveness and quality of life in organizations” (ibid, p. 178). Occupational wellbeing
represents one of the key topics in POP, together with other central concepts (such as workengagement,
flow, job crafting, psychological capital) and theories (such as self-determination
theory, Job Demands-Resources Theory) (for an overview, see e.g. Bakker, 2013).
The specific topic of this habilitation thesis, i.e. occupational well-being among academic
faculty, has emerged as an important research area around the 2000s, when occupational
psychologists and higher education scholars begun to examine working conditions in their own
profession. Since 1980s, higher education systems in western societies – and particularly in
English-speaking countries including the UK, the US, Canada, and Australia – have undergone a
profound transformation, during which the main form of academic governance has changed from
the traditional system of “academic self-rule” to a new “market-oriented system” (Shin & Jung,
2014, see also Kinman, 2014). This transformation has been labelled by varied labels, such as
“market-orientation” (Dobbins, 2011), “neoliberalism” (Davies & Bansel, 2005) or “academic
9
capitalism” (Shattock, 2017).1
Reflecting this transformation, researchers have begun to examine
its effect on the academic profession, including academics’ occupational health.
One of the most influential scholars in this new research area has been Professor Gail
Kinman, occupational health psychologist based in the UK. Drawing on large-scale survey studies,
Kinman and her colleagues were able to demonstrate a significant rise in job stress among
academic faculty (e.g. Kinman, 2001; Kinman & Jones, 2008; Kinman & Wray, 2014), which they
attributed to the growing marketization of higher education. In a recent special issue dedicated to
faculty occupational well-being, Kinman and Jones (2019, p. 159) summarized that, in the marketoriented
model, “a general need to ‘do more with less’ has increased the volume and intensity of
work performed by academics and transformed the culture of universities”, with negative impact
on faculty occupational well-being. The specific factors discussed as detrimental to faculty wellbeing
involved the following: a substantial increase in work demand (also related to increased role
conflict and work-family conflict), growing competitiveness, a significant growth in students’
numbers (i.e. massification of higher education), pressures to continually seek external funding
and secure cooperation with private industries, installation of performance-based and/or autocratic
management, growing percentage of contract-based employment (and related job insecurity), and,
last but not the least, excessive administrative burden reported by academics, particularly by those
in leadership positions (Fredman & Doughney, 2012; Shin & Jung, 2014; Teelken & Deem, 2013).
Around the same time (i.e. in early 2000s), another stream of research addressing the
impact of this market-oriented transformation of higher education on faculty has emerged,
drawing, however, on a very different paradigm involving discursive, critical, and poststructuralist
theories (see Gannon & Davies, 2007). A prominent scholar in this field has been Professor
Bronwyn Davies (Davies, 2005; Davies & Bansel, 2005, 2007, 2010), an Australian researcher in
the field of Sociology of Education.2
In an seminal study on “the rise of neo-liberal university”,
Davies and Bansel (2006) defined neoliberalism as a set of economic discourses and practices
based on a “governmental rationality that money is (always) scarce and that responsible workers
1
In our studies (see Mudrak et al., 2020; Zabrodska et al., 2016, 2018), we use the term “market-oriented model”,
drawing on categorization of academic systems proposed by Dobbins and his colleagues (Dobbins, 2011; Dobbins &
Knill, 2009).
2
The author of this habilitation thesis worked under the supervision of Professor Bronwyn Davies at the University
of Western Sydney in Australia, during her two scholarships in 2007-8 and in 2011 (see also CV). This cooperation
resulted in a book Pedagogical Encounters published by Peter Lang (Davies & Gannon, 2009) and a highly cited
study on workplace bullying in neoliberal academia (Zabrodska, Linnell, Laws & Davies, 2011) that is included in
this habilitation thesis (Study VI).
10
must, in the name of continuous improvement, produce (ever) more with less and less” (ibid, pp.
305-306). As Davies and Bansel highlighted, the major change concerning universities and
academic work brought on by neoliberalism has not been technical, but ideological. Under
neoliberalism, higher education has ceased to be viewed as a collective good essential for the
citizens’ well-being and prosperity. Instead, it has been re-conceptualized as a “product” driven
by market forces; a shift that was accompanied with massive cuts in universities state funding
(ibid). Thus, similar to other “businesses”, universities have become subjected to market-oriented
norms and practices, such as competition, accountability, profitability, quality assurance,
performance measurement, and business-style management. In a set of studies, Davies and her
colleagues illustrated numerous adverse effects of this neoliberal transformation on academics’
subjectivity (Davies & Bansel, 2010) as well as on academics’ capacity for intellectual work
(Bansel et al., 2008; Davies, 2005)3
.
This habilitation thesis bridges over the two above described approaches. During my PhD
studies, I was fortunate to receive the Endeavour Europe Award to work at the University of
Wester Sydney under the supervision of Professor Bronwyn Davies, the aforementioned proponent
of critical and poststructuralist work on neoliberal academia. As one of the results of this
cooperation, we published a joint study (see Zabrodska et al., 2011) using Karen Barad’s theory
of intra-action (Barad, 2007) to explore the detrimental impact of neoliberal discourses on
academics’ subjectivity (Study VI). Following this initial work, however, I have gradually shifted
my paradigmatic framework from poststructuralist theory to evidence-based research embedded
in a realist paradigm. The reason behind this shift is simple: from my current perspective, the
poststructuralist research is valuable for critical analysis or deconstruction of hegemonic social
discourses related to work, yet it appears to be limited in its ability to design and evaluate practical
interventions to improve employees’ quality of working life. Yet, in order to promote better
working conditions and to enhance employee well-being in higher education (as well as in other
occupational sectors), practical interventions are crucial. Therefore, except for the Study VI, all
studies included in my habilitation thesis are grounded in the realist paradigm, are based on
evidence-based quantitative research, and draw predominantly on concepts from Occupational
Health Psychology.
3
For Davies’s more recent work, see e.g. Davies (2020).
11
The articles included in this habilitation thesis are based on a proposition that the increased
work demands and reduced work resources that define the neoliberal transformation of higher
education can be effectively conceptualized and researched using the Job Demands-Resources
Theory (JD-R) (e.g. Bakker & Demerouti, 2007, 2014; Bakker, 2011). The JD-R theory has been
formulated in early 2000s (see Bakker & Demerouti, 2007; Demerouti, Bakker, Nachreiner, &
Schaufeli, 2001) and since then has attracted enormous research attention, becoming a major
current theory of occupational health (Cunningham & Black, 2021; Schonfeld & Chang, 2017).
The JD-R theory offers a comprehensive and flexible theoretical framework that allows to
conceptualize central aspects of the (academic) work environment and to explain and make
predictions about different facets of employee well-being, including job stress, burnout, work
engagement, and job satisfaction (Bakker, 2011; Bakker & Demerouti, 2017). The JD-R theory
has been proposed with the aim to address limits of several earlier theories of occupational health.
As Bakker and Demerouti (2014) explain, these earlier models had one-sided focus either on work
motivation as a positive process, or on job stress as a negative process, and therefore did not allow
for an integrative conceptualization of both stress and motivation as co-existing processes –
something that is one of the key contributions of the JD-R theory.
Specifically, the JD-R theory postulates that working conditions that influence employee
well-being can be classified into two broad categories. The first of these categories are referred to
as “job demands” and are defined as “those physical, social, or organizational aspects of the job
that require sustained physical and/or psychological effort and are, therefore, associated with
physiological and/or psychological costs” (Xanthopoulou, Bakker, Demerouti, & Schaufeli, 2007,
p. 122). Job demands may include, for instance, quantitative work demands, emotional work
demands, job insecurity, or work-family conflict. The second category of work conditions are
referred to as “job resources” and are defined as “those physical, social, or organizational aspects
of the job that (a) are functional in achieving work-related goals, (b) reduce job demands and the
associated physiological and psychological costs, and (c) stimulate personal growth and
development” (ibid). Examples of job resources involve, for instance, autonomy, collegial support,
organizational support, or positive leadership. The JD-R theory assumes that using these two
categories of job characteristics will allow for modeling of all working environments, while at the
same time recognizing that in each working environment a unique constellation of job demands
and job resources may be relevant to predict employee well-being.
12
The JD-R theory appears to be well suited to analyze the effects of increasing job demands
and decreasing job resources in higher education. For instance, Kinman & Jones (2019) observed
that “the resources that have traditionally protected academic employees against stress and
burnout, such as tenure, autonomy, collegiality, and role clarity, are diminishing rapidly” (Kinman
& Jones, 2019, p. 159). At the same time, other studies observe an increase in specific job demands,
particularly work intensity, job insecurity, and work-family conflict (e.g. Winefield et al., 2003;
Winefield, Boyd, & Winefield, 2014). Despite the noticeable relevance of the JD-R framework for
the analysis of the marketization of the university environment, the JD-R model has been rarely
applied in this organizational context (for exceptions, see Barkhuizen et al., 2014; Boyd et al.,
2011).4
One of the innovative contributions of this corpus of studies is that, together with my coauthors,
we have published one of the first studies to systematically test the propositions of the JDR
theory using data from our questionnaires surveys among academic faculty. Specifically, our
studies have been one of the first to: a) apply the JD-R theory to identify predictors of faculty
burnout (Study IV, see Zábrodská et al., 2018) and b) to test the “dual processes” hypothesized by
the JD-R theory, i.e., the existence of two relatively independent paths between job
demands/resources and positive/negative aspects of faculty well-being (Study V, see Mudrák et
al., 2018).5
A unique aspect of the research presented in this thesis is the application of occupational
health theories on the specific work environment in Czech higher education institutions which has
a number of distinctive features, compared to higher education systems in Anglophone and other
countries where most of the research on faculty well-being have been conducted so far. As we
have argued across our studies, the Czech Republic as well as other Central and Eastern European
countries, represent a particularly interesting setting in which to explore the relationship between
occupational well-being, academic work environments, and academic governance (for details, see
Zabrodska et al., 2016 (Study I); Mudrak et al., 2021 (Study VII). This is because the Czech higher
education institutions represent a hybrid model (Kolsaker, 2008) comprising diverse elements of
the increasing marketization, the traditional model of academic self-rule, as well as potential
historical path dependencies of the state-model (Dobbins & Knill, 2009; Pesik & Gounko, 2011).
4
At least at the times when the studies comprising this habilitation thesis were published.
5
The relevance of these two studies is reflected in the frequency of their citations. Currently, Zabrodska et al.’s
(2018) study on faculty burnout has 36 WOS citations and Mudrak et al.’s (2018) study on faculty occupational
well-being has 56 WOS citations.
13
Thus, the starting point of our research which we had initiated in 2014 was that academics at Czech
public universities were likely subjected to many sources of faculty strain identified in Anglophone
countries, such as pressures to attract external funding and to create ties to industry, or pressures
to service large numbers of students (Dvořáčková et al., 2014; Linková, 2014). At the same time,
the hybridity of the Czech system, and particularly the still strong presence of the academic selfrule,
indicated that Czech academics likely still benefitted from many elements of the academic
self-rule model, particularly from relatively high levels of perceived autonomy and collegiality.
Therefore, the studies that the author of this habilitation thesis and her co-authors6
have
conducted over the pasts eight years have aimed to explore the Czech academic profession within
this changing terrain, to analyze the complex relationships between the hybrid model of Czech
higher education governance, the psychosocial work-environments at Czech universities, and
faculty occupational well-being. To provide a comprehensive insight, we researched diverse
aspects of the Czech academic profession, including the quality of work environments at Czech
universities (see Zabrodska et al., 2014; 2016), gender inequalities in working conditions (see
Zabrodska et al., 2017), practices and construction of academic leadership (see Machovcova &
Zabrodska, 2016; Machovcova et al., 2019; Machovcova et al. 2022), social construction of
academic excellence (Mudrák, Zábrodská, & Machovcová, 2019), departmental organizational
cultures (see Mudrak et al., 2021), workplace incivility and bullying among faculty (see
Pauknerova, Zabrodska & Walton, forthcoming; Zabrodska et al., 2011; Zabrodska & Kveton,
2012; 2015; Zabrodska et al., 2016), and, most recently, academic career attrition (see Cidlinska
et al., 2022).
Summary of Research Aims
This habilitation thesis aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of occupational well-being
among Czech academic faculty in the context of the global neoliberal transformation of higher
education. More specifically, the aims of this thesis are:
6
The author and her co-authors together form a research group “Organizational Studies in Higher Education”
(OSHE) which has been established at the Institute of Psychology, Czech Academy of Sciences to associate
researchers who use organizational psychology theories to study higher education institutions. The author of this
thesis is the head of the OSHE group.
14
1) to examine levels of occupational well-being (defined as involving job satisfaction, job
stress, burnout, and work engagement) among Czech faculty and to examine specific
indicators of the quality of academic work environments at selected public universities
(Study I and II),
2) to apply the Job Demands-Resources theory (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007, 2014, 2017) to
investigate how specific job demands and job resources in the Czech university work
environment influence faculty burnout (Study III) and other multiple dimensions of faculty
well-being (Study IV),
3) to examine the prevalence and forms of a specific psychosocial risk of faculty workplace
bullying (Study V) and to critically deconstruct neoliberal discourses and practices that
may contribute to faculty bullying (Study VI)
4) to apply the Competing values framework (Cameron & Quinn, 2011) to examine
organizational cultures at Czech university departments, while hypothesizing the
relationship between identified cultures and transforming model of higher education
governance and considering implications of different academic cultures for faculty
occupational well-being.
The following section provides summaries of the studies included in this thesis:
Study 1, titled “Keeping marketization at bay: The quality of academic worklife in Czech
universities”, aimed to examine specific indicators of the quality of academic worklife within
Czech public universities to assess the extent to which the global trend of marketisation has
affected occupational well-being and working condition of Czech faculty members. These
indicators involved job characteristics previously identified in Anglophone higher education sector
as characteristics of the market-oriented system, such as job insecurity, work overload, role
conflict, work-family conflict, etc. The data for the study involved questionnaire data collected in
a sample of 2,229 faculty members at three major Czech public universities.
Study 2, “A self-determined profession? Perceived work conditions and the satisfaction paradox
among Czech academic faculty“, was a follow-up of our Study I and responded to a published
15
discussion of our Study I in the Czech Sociological Review7
. Specifically, we aimed to explain
our finding from Study I which we had labelled a “satisfaction paradox”, i.e. observed combination
of relatively high job satisfaction and low levels of job stress among Czech faculty, combined with
faculty members’ unfavorable evaluations of their working conditions. In addition, we focused on
potential inequalities in the perceived job demands and job resources experienced by different
groups of academics based on academic title, age, and gender. The data for the study involved
faculty members’ (N=1,202) qualitative responses to open-ended questions in a questionnaire
survey, analyzed by content analysis.
Study 3, “Burnout among university faculty: The central role of work–family conflict”, aimed to
examine both direct and indirect associations of faculty burnout with psychosocial work
environments, using the JD-R theory. Specifically, we empirically tested a structural model that
hypothesized a positive effect of three job demands (quantitative demands, work-family conflict,
job insecurity) and a negative effect of three job resources (influence, social community, role
clarity) on faculty burnout. The data for the study involved questionnaire data collected in a sample
of 2,229 faculty members at three major Czech public universities.
Study 4, “Occupational well-being among university faculty: A Job Demands-Resources model“,
aimed to test the effects of ‘‘dual processes’’ hypothesized by the JD-R theory, i.e., the existence
of two relatively independent paths between job demands/resources and positive/negative aspects
of faculty well-being. The study participants were 1,389 full-time faculty members employed in
public universities in the Czech Republic.
Study 5, “Prevalence and forms of workplace bullying among university employees“, aimed to
examine the exposure to workplace bullying among faculty members, including the prevalence,
forms of bullying, perceived causes, and other factors. The focus on workplace bullying was
selected because faculty bullying represents one of the significant psychosocial risks for the
university sector. Both subjective and objective exposure to workplace bullying was assessed,
using the Negative Acts Questionnaire-Revised (NAQ-R) in a sample of 1,533 university faculty
7
In 2017, three articles discussing our study I (Zabrodska et al., 2016) were published in the Czech Sociological
Review (Volume 53). The Study II was published as a response to these articles.
16
members. The results were discussed in relation to the hybridity of the Czech higher education
system.
Study 6, “Bullying as intra-active process in neoliberal universities“, aimed to critically examine
the institution of neoliberal universities and unhealthy workplace behaviors related to the
neoliberal-related practices of micromanagement of ever-increasing productivity,
competitiveness, and individualization. This qualitative study used an innovative methodology of
collective biography and Karen Barad’s theory of intra-activity, influenced by poststructuralims
and new materialism. The data involved collective biography stories of academic bullying and
incivility.
Study 7, “Competing values at public universities: Organisational cultures and job demandsresources
in academic departments“, aimed to examine organizational cultures at Czech university
departments based on the Competing values framework (Cameron & Quinn, 2011). Specifically,
we used two competing values dimensions of internal–external orientation and low–high control
proposed by the Competing values model to examine the prevalence of different organizational
cultures at Czech universities and to explore how academic employees from different types of
departmental cultures perceive their academic work environment and occupational well-being,
based on differences in perceived job resources and job demands. Drawing on motivation theories,
we hypothesized that the central differences in faculty well-being will arise along the flexibilitycontrol
dimension, and the related differences in level of perceived autonomy. The data for the
study involved questionnaire data collected in a sample of 2,229 faculty members.
List of Original Publications
This habilitation thesis consists of seven original publications that investigate occupational wellbeing
and its predictors among academic faculty at Czech public universities in the context of the
neoliberal transformation of universities. The data for these studies were collected across three
subsequent research projects funded by the Czech Science Foundation, of which the author of this
thesis was principal investigator. These projects were: “Workplace bullying in tertiary education:
Qualitative methodology as a research and intervention tool” (GA10 P407/10/P146); “Quality of
17
work environment and employee well-being in public higher education” (GA14-02098S); and
“Excellent research between an individual, institution, and discourse: Collaborative construction
of research productivity at research institutions” (GAČR 20-13732S).
Study I
Zábrodská, K., Mudrák, J., Květon, P., Machovcová, K., Blatný, M., & Šolcová, I. (2016).
Keeping marketization at bay: The quality of academic worklife in Czech universities. Czech
Sociological Review, 52, 347-373.
Study II
Mudrák, J., Zábrodská, K., & Machovcová, K. (2020). A self-determined profession? Perceived
work conditions and the satisfaction paradox among Czech academic faculty. Czech Sociological
Review, 56(3), 387-418.
Study III
Zábrodská, K., Mudrák, J., Šolcová, I., Květon, P., Blatný, M., & Machovcová, K. (2018).
Burnout among university faculty: The central role of work–family conflict. Educational
Psychology, 38(6), 800-819.
Study IV
Mudrák, J., Zábrodská, K., Květon, P., Jelínek, M., Blatný, M., Šolcová, I., & Machovcová, K.
(2018). Occupational well-being among university faculty: A Job Demands-Resources model.
Research in Higher Education, 59(3), 325-348.
Study V
Zabrodska, K., & Kveton, P. (2013). Prevalence and forms of workplace bullying among
university employees. Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, 25 (2), 89-108.
Study VI
Zabrodska, K., Linnell, S., Laws, C. & Davies, B. (2011). Bullying as intra-active process in
neoliberal universities. Qualitative Inquiry, 17 (8), 709-719.
18
Study VII
Mudrak, J., Zabrodska, K., Machovcova, K., Cidlinska, K., & Takacs, L. (2021). Competing
values at public universities: Organisational cultures and job demands‐resources in academic
departments. Higher Education Quarterly, 76(1), 153-173.
The author’s contribution
Study I: The study was conducted as a part of the Czech Science Foundation grant (GA14-
02098S), of which the author was the principal investigator (hereafter PI). The author designed the
study methodology including the questionnaire battery, organized the process of data collection,
conceptualized the article, supervised data analyses, and wrote up the study (90%), including the
revisions of the article.
Study II: The questionnaire data were collected as a part of the Czech Science Foundation grant
(GA14-02098S), of which the author was the PI. The author designed the study methodology
including the questionnaire battery, organized the process of data collection, cooperated with the
first author on data analyses and the interpretation of research findings, and wrote 50% of the
study. The author was the corresponding author for this study.
Study III: The questionnaire data were collected as a part of the Czech Science Foundation grant
(GA14-02098S), of which the author was the PI. The author designed the study methodology
including the questionnaire battery, organized the process of data collection, conceptualized the
article, supervised data analyses, interpreted the findings, and wrote up the complete study (95%),
including the revisions of the article.
Study IV: The questionnaire data were collected as a part of the Czech Science Foundation grant
(GA14-02098S), of which the author was the PI. The author designed the study methodology
including the questionnaire battery, organized the process of data collection, cooperated with the
first author on the conceptualization of the study, collaborated on data analyses and findings
interpretations, and wrote 50% of the study.
19
Study V, VI: Both studies were conducted as a part of the Czech Science Foundation grant
(P407/10/P146), of which the author was the principal investigator. The author designed the study
methodology including the data collection, conceptualized the article, supervised data analyses,
and wrote up the major parts of the studies (90% of the study V, and 70% of the study VI),
including the revisions of the article.
Study VII: The study was conducted as a part of the Czech Science Foundation grant (GA20-
13732S), of which the author was the PI. The author designed the study methodology including
the questionnaire battery, organized the process of data collection, cooperated with the first author
on data analyses and the interpretation of research findings, and wrote 50% of the study.
Note: This habilitation thesis is formatted in APA style. However, three of the studies included in
this corpus were published in journals with different formatting styles (Study I, II and V).
Formatting in these three studies was kept consistent with the original version of the published
articles.