Countermeasures Against Job Burnout Among College and University Administrators from the Perspective of Psychological Contract Theory

Administrators are the implementers of the management in colleges and universities; however, their job scopes are relatively boring and complicated, with heavy workload and high work pressure, causing some of them to be less active and slack off in their careers. Therefore, under the guidance of psychological contract theory, colleges and universities should adopt various measures to deal with job burnout among college and university administrators. In this paper, the main causes of job burnout among college and university administrators are analyzed, and specific countermeasures are proposed from the perspective of psychological contract theory, hoping to help college and university administrators improve their work enthusiasm.

The Job Insecurity of Others: On the Role of Perceived National Job Insecurity During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Political scientists and sociologists have highlighted insecure work as a societal ill underlying individuals’ lack of social solidarity (i.e., concern about the welfare of disadvantaged others) and political disruption. In order to provide the psychological underpinnings connecting perceptions of job insecurity with societally-relevant attitudes and behaviors, we introduce the idea of perceived national job insecurity. Perceived national job insecurity reflects a person’s perception that job insecurity is more or less prevalent in his/her society (i.e., country). Across three countries (US, UK, Belgium), we find that higher perceptions of the prevalence of job insecurity in one’s country is associated with greater perceptions of government psychological contract breach and poorer perceptions of the government’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis, but at the same time is associated with greater social solidarity and compliance with COVID-19 social regulations. These findings are independent of individuals’ perceptions of threats to their own jobs.

Impact of Psychological Contract on Employees' Performance

The performance of employees defines the competitive advantage of the company in current ferocious competition, and it affects the long-standing growth of the company. If a company inspires its workforce merely by the means of financial contract, then the company will not be in the position to gain the effective and efficient performances from its employees. Because apart from this financial contract, psychological contract also upsets attitudes and performance of the employees at the workplace. The spirit of the firms is the employees, and the implementation of the psychological contract can effectually decrease the turnover rate of employees and consequently increase their efficiency at the workplace. In the current chapter, first of all an attempt has been made to elucidate the concept and development process of psychological contract. After that it is endeavored to highlight the positive impact of psychological contract on employees' performances such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, job performance, organization citizenship behavior, and turnover intentions.

Behind the Online Course

Higher education institutions' success in providing online courses at the beginning of the pandemic depends not only on their infrastructure and organizational units for virtual education but also on diverse teams composed of professors specialized in pedagogy, researchers, and professionals in digital technologies for education. The authors describe their experiences in the bargaining process, tensions, ways to solve controversies, the management of time and resources, pitfalls, problems, correct guess, and hits to create new knowledge-based products for the Colombian National Ministry of Education (MEN in Spanish acronyms) platform's “Colombia Aprende” within a high pressure against time and the reputational risk of failing in the pandemic chaos. Results show that the psychological contract theory explains the capacity to compromise to overcome several difficulties such as an extra load of work, and the knowledge creation theory provides a helpful model to understand how the team innovated.