RESULTADOS PRELIMINARES DE LA IMPLEMENTACIÓN DE BUENAS

This study had three major objectives. The first was to investigate what aspects of academics’ work were seen to be meaningful in the opinion of the interviewees. The answer to that depended on whether the academics were oriented towards research or towards teaching. Academics whose sense of work meaningfulness came from teaching had difficulty accepting the emphasis on research. These academics felt that engagement with research did nothing to help their students in any way. At the same time, they were further impacted with large classes and a diverse range of students, situations which arose due to the growing commercialisation and massification policy. It seems that their negative feelings arose from them not being able to provide appropriate support to needy students, whilst being bullied by other students who are not so much focussed on getting proper education, but instead are there just to get a qualification. Academics who defined themselves in terms of their teaching are also being impacted by inappropriate student evaluations that are being used for simplistic performance appraisal. The majority of the academics who teach said that this form of evaluation served no purpose as a feedback mechanism, and it certainly did not promote work meaningfulness –

123 rather it had a negative impact. Of interest was that this issue was also felt to be inappropriate by those staff who prefer research to teaching.

Academics who prefer the research stream often chose this avenue in order that they would be able to pursue an area of knowledge generation and interest that was meaningful to them. However, that route is now being threatened, as research areas are being decided by levels of available funding, and furthermore career building is also dependent on whether the research outcomes can be published in high ranked journals. Academics who want to be research active stated that they would like to be able to make an impact in the field of their choice, and they attested that publishing in high ranked journals will never make any practical impact because practitioners outside academia do not know of, or read, these high ranked journals, as pointed out by Adler and Harzing (2009). As a consequence, these academics who want to make practical and real-world impacts are battling with the issue of attaining work meaningfulness.

A complicating reason for this conundrum arises because perks that are given as rewards for publishing in high ranked journals do not necessarily satisfy academics’ intrinsic motivation. As Orchid pointed out, monetary compensation is linked to high publishing outcomes, and money is clearly important for academics to be able to live a decent life in this economy where costs keep rising. It seems from the responses gathered that not surprisingly academics are being torn between these two extremes. They are willing to disregard the need to satisfy their intrinsic motivation and instead work for the additional perks and possible monetary increases, because they feel that non-recognition of their chosen work is affecting their sense of accomplishment and feelings of worth. This confirms what Ryan and Deci (2000) theorise; that intrinsic motivation can easily be disrupted in a non-supportive environment. The domino effect that will arise from being driven by external motivators is inferior work quality given that Amabile (1988) has noted that work output flamed by intrinsic motivation is superior that that flamed by external motivators.

The informants seemed to imply that the current policies implemented by their organisations have the potential to turn work meaningfulness into just work for money. It is quite possible that, for many of the informants, work is now not meaningful but has been pragmatically turned into a source of income, or a promotions network in a place with like- minded people.

124 The next objective was to find out what fundamental individual and organisational factors influenced a sense of work meaningfulness. In essence, this was a question of what were the synergies and differences between academics who work at different levels in different universities. It became clear that, generally, when management appreciated the work academics produced, there was pride, happiness and motivation to perform better. Also, it appeared that networking outside of their daily work environment, such as attending conferences and professional development, made academics feel that the organisation cared for their personal growth and wellbeing. Interestingly, when managers gave specific attention to personal and professional development, or a note of appreciation which might include a simple complimentary acknowledgement regarding work done, it left a long-lasting feel-good situation. It was also evident that, conversely, management’s fixated focus on money, shown through cuts and restrictions together with revenue raising, impeded the sense of work meaningfulness for those who were active and committed academics, with a few academics feeling betrayed and let down. It seems that the restructuring has resulted in some academics suffering financial stress or left feeling disrespected or undervalued, resulting in these affected academics being unable to perform at optimum (Gappa & Austin 2010; Rosso, Dekas & Wrzesniewski 2010).

The final objective was to understand how academics perceived the meaningfulness of their work, and how this affected students’ learning experiences within the broader impact of the university. It seems that the majority of the informants were not able to associate any element of their own sense of work meaningfulness to students’ learning outcomes. Many of the respondents felt that the students were not at the universities for the traditional reasons such as knowledge and skills upgrade. As indicated by Carnation and Alba, informants often felt that the students were there to simply obtain a piece of paper or qualification by any means they could. This resulted in a few academics such as Gardenia and Daisy feeling that being a ‘traditional’ academic is no longer valued and while a minority of the informants said that the university environment is still appropriate, the majority of them stated that they are not sure what will happen, giving a strong hint that pursuing the current path may not be good for the university. In the next section, the implications of eroding work meaningfulness are discussed in detail under the aegis of three main categories; organisational goal, performance management system and role management.

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