This study examines the evolution of research productivity and perceptions of working conditions of Hong Kong academics over a period of three decades. The following four research questions are raised: (1) How has the research output of Hong Kong’s academics changed over time? (2) How do academics perceive their working conditions at the individual level in terms of job satisfaction and stress? (3) What are Hong Kong academics’ perceptions of institutional working conditions? (4) How do perceptions of working conditions vary across career stages and levels of research productivity?

The analysis is based on data from the following three surveys: the Carnegie Foundation Academic Profession survey (1992-1993), the Changing Academic Profession (CAP) survey (2007-2008), and the Academic Profession in the Knowledge Society (APIKS) survey (2017-2018). Descriptive statistics are used to analyse academics’ research productivity and perceptions of working conditions at both the individual and institutional levels. Instead of aggregating the datasets, we separated and compared the three cohorts to obtain insights into how academics’ perceptions have changed over time. In 1992–1993, the survey included 353 (75%) male participants and 118 (25%) female participants. This gender distribution among survey participants shifted in the 2007–2008 cohort, with 534 (67%) males and 263 (33%) females. By the 2017–2018 cohort, the number of male respondents was 350 (64%), while the number of female participants was 197 (36%).

Hong Kong presents an interesting case for comparing academic perceptions across time periods, given the significant changes the system has undergone. During the first survey, Hong Kong was a British colony characterised by a dynamic blend of higher education environments influenced by the policies of the UK, a diverse international academic community, and rich Chinese cultural influences. Following its handover to China in 1997, Hong Kong maintained its unique identity as an international hub with a heightened focus on research, distinguishing itself as a global research centre and leveraging its strategic position bridging the East and West (Postiglione & Jung, 2014). Over the past decade, Chinese influence has become more apparent in the system, as evidenced by the growing number of academics from Mainland China and closer research collaboration networks with their Mainland China counterparts (Law, 2019). These historical and political transformations have significantly impacted academics’ perceptions of their scholarly pursuits and professional environments, including institutional policies.

The results section is divided into four parts. The first part compares the average research output over time based on the survey responses. The second part examines how academics perceive their working conditions at the individual level, assessed through their perceptions of job prospects, overall satisfaction, and stress levels. The third part presents the perceptions of Hong Kong academics regarding institutional working conditions, including performance-based resource allocation and personal decision-making based on performance. The last section compares perceptions of working conditions across career stages and levels of research productivity to investigate whether generational differences or research output levels influence these perceptions.

The findings reveal a significant increase in the average number of publications per academic over time. This is accompanied by a rise in their negative perceptions of working conditions at both individual and institutional levels, with the effect being more pronounced at the individual level. Despite the perceived high pressure at the individual level, recent cohorts of academics viewed institutional working conditions more positively than did their previous cohorts in the survey. We interpreted these contrasting findings by considering Hong Kong’s distinctive higher education culture and the impact of generational changes on academic culture. These findings also offer important implications for policymakers and institutional managers on how to understand and manage the current culture of performativity.

This paper seeks to examines through literature and research studies conducted over the past 15 years how academics respond to workload intensification within contemporary universities, with particular focus on wellbeing practices and the moderating role of professional development.

The emergence of neoliberalism, managerialism and the corporate agenda in higher education over recent decades together with the introduction of performance measurement systems have brought with experiences of academic work intensification. These structural and cultural changes have been accompanied by significant increases to student numbers as a consequence of massification and the marketisation of the sector. Noordegraaf (2015, p.191) describes the impact of this development as creating a working environment for academic professional where:

instead of autonomous professionals, the focus is on employees with clear roles and responsibilities in turning organizational inputs – money, materials – into tangible results for identifiable customers.

Together with its impact in diminishing professional autonomy, the introduction of the managerialist and corporate agenda has created a situation where academic behaviour has been translated into objective, quantifiable and comparable indicators (Hattke et al., 2016, p.239). As measurement, reporting and recording duties have expanded, administrative tasks for the academic have become more involved, time consuming and complex. Work-related pressures arising from heavy workloads, limited professional autonomy and performance-based managerial cultures are contributing to declining wellbeing and heightened mental health risks for academics (Jayman et al. 2022). Pace et al. (2021) reports the time that academics spend responding to administrative procedures is time away from their research or other important tasks, and this causes stress and burdens their work. In a UK study, Wray & Kinman (2021), found a progressive increase in demands on academic staff had reached a level requiring an ‘urgent need for action’. and support to develop in their roles.

With reduced autonomy and increased administrative duties a feature of working in the contemporary university, this paper examines how academics respond to workload intensification, with a particular focus on wellbeing practices and the moderating role of professional development. Kenny (2018) remarks that much of the literature focuses on the detrimental effects of institutional changes on academic work, with limited exploration as to what practical steps can be taken to alleviate the situation. This paper proceeds from the premise that professional development, aligned with appropriate structural support, can moderate the negative impacts of academic workload intensification. The research question posed is what does existing literature reveal about the role of wellbeing structures and practices and professional development in moderating academic workload intensification within contemporary universities?

This paper seeks to start to address the gap as identified by Kenny (ibid) and to bring together research and literature sources that may provide guidance and insight in remedying the challenges faced by academics arising from work intensification.

In addressing this research question, this paper will examine the development of institutional wellbeing structures and practices and professional development for academic staff over the past 15 years together with experiences from the literature of workload intensification and engagement with wellbeing-related practices and structures.

The paper also explores academic professional development and seeks to identify linkages which may have been identified between professional development structures and practices and wellbeing. The intention of the author is to examine both structured institutional programmes and individual practices which can enable and encourage academic professionals to effectively manage the negative and detrimental effects of academic workload intensification.

Global academia has evolved from a more collaborative to a more competitive formation for funding and talent acquisition, particularly with knowledge requirements for new technologies and social developments in the information age (Aarrevaara et al., 2021). Consequently, many higher education institutions (HEIs) have found themselves within different competitive excellence systems and started to design targets for their academic workforce regarding scientific production measures (Leisyte et al., 2025). To enhance academics’ productivity, while most of HEIs chose to develop a complex appointment-promotion criteria and merit-based payment schemes, these strategies quicken performativity culture within the academia (Gebreiter, 2022).

Performativity culture in HEIs is a management regime where the value of academic work is mainly reduced to measurable performance indicators, such as publication counts and global rankings, forcing scholars to prioritize ‘showing’ productivity over the collegial substance of teaching and research (Macfarlane, 2016). This performance-based management regime has a longer history in higher education (HE) systems of many developed countries; for example, merit payment schemes in Canada and USA (Kasten, 1984), research university evaluations in Austria, Germany, Netherlands, and the UK (Campbell, 2003), or a well-known example of China’s World-Class Research University scheme in 1990s (Huang, 2015). During this period, it seems that these merits and research evaluation criteria have become standard components of career policies of academic profession in these countries (Leisyte et al., 2025).

Given this, to understand the expected and unintended consequences of performativity culture and to define necessary policy regulations for a more efficient academic career system, more research is needed to examine the initial outcomes of emerging performance strategies, particularly in developing countries targeting higher-ranking positions. In this context, the Turkish HE system provides an interesting case of emerging performativity culture, with its nationwide merit-based bonus payments and research university selection schemes, both initiated in the last ten years.

The Turkish government started a new academic incentive program in 2015 to increase the productivity in academia and the attractiveness of academic salaries (Uslu, 2016) followed by initiatives in 2019 to put targets to include Turkish universities in the top rankings globally. In 2020, the Council of Higher Education (CoHE) initiated the research university scheme to empower 10 selected universities in their research capacity with additional financial and HR support (Yaman, 2021). In 2025, after national assessment for HEIs based on ‘publications, citations, patents, and income generation’ criteria, this scheme reached 23 research universities and 10 candidates (CoHE, 2025).

Accordingly, this research aims to investigate the outcomes of this emerging performativity culture for Turkish academics and is designed as ‘explanatory mixed-methods research’. Here, previous research provides us an initial analytical framework by potentially visible (as ‘good’, publication and ranking records), unfavourable (as ‘bad’, less leaning to academic career or inbreeding), and unwanted (as ‘ugly’, academic misconduct and ethical problems) (e.g., Çağlar & Gürler, 2020; Vurucu, 2019; Yokuş et al., 2018). We initially use official statistics of SCOPUS, CoHE statistics, and University Rankings of Academic Performance (URAP) to compare pre- and post-2015 periods for academic productivity. Then, we carry out interviews with academics diversified according to geographical regions, institution types (public-private), date of establishment (pre1992, 1992-2005, post2005), disciplines (STEM, Health Sciences, Social Sciences), and seniority (PhD candidates, postDocs, assist./assoc./full professors), targeting around 50 interviewees. Then, we employ directed content analysis (by visible-good, unfavourable-bad, and unwanted-ugly themes) to examine their opinions on the outcomes of performativity culture.

After data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing/verification (Miles et al., 2020), we integrate direct quotations to our results to ensure ‘credibility’ (Creswell & Miller, 2000). Then, without an intention to generalise our findings, we compare the results with “Academic Profession in the Knowledge-Based Society (APIKS) survey employed in 2017-2018 in Türkiye to enrich our analysis for ‘transferability’; ensure the consistency for our interview platforms (as using online platform only, e.g., MS Teams) considering ‘dependability’; use an AI platform (e.g., NotebookLM) for secondary analysis check to increase the ‘confirmability’ of our qualitative results.

The findings will provide critical insights into how appointment-promotion and merit-based payment reforms shape academic culture in country systems aiming to increase research productivity. Policy and practice recommendations are made to support more balanced incentive structures and to mitigate unintended consequences for equitable research practices, collegiality, academic freedom, and institutional autonomy.