The purpose of this study is to test the relationship between job workload and academic performance among university academic staff in Malaysia. The paper also attempts to discuss and then seek empirical evidence to the two mediational paths (namely, career commitment and job satisfaction) that explain the focal relationship between job workload and academic performance. To test the three proposed hypotheses, the study used cross-sectional data collected from academic staff serving in Malaysian Research Universities (MRUs). The final sample of 191 valid and complete responses was analysed using SmartPLS 3.3.3 to test the hypotheses. Results showed that workload is negatively related to academic staff performance. In addition, job satisfaction mediates workload and academic staff performance linkage. These findings reinforce the importance of job satisfaction as an influencing factor against the deleterious effect of job workload and academic staff performance. The study has shown that, contrary to our expectations, career commitment does not mediate the relation between job workload and academic staff performance.  Going forward, this study provides new insights about the effect of job workload on the performance of university academic staff through intervening variables.    Keywords: Career commitment, Job satisfaction, Job workload, Academic staff performance, Malaysian Research University

This paper serves to study the influences of career commitment and workload on job satisfaction among academics in higher education. We investigated whether a supportive environment is a significant moderator between workload and job satisfaction. For this cross-sectional study, the stratified random sampling method yielded 191 academics from five research universities in Malaysia. Partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) showed that high levels of career commitment correspond with high levels of satisfaction at work of academics. Also, a greater workload diminishes job satisfaction among academics. The analysis of the interaction-moderation dynamics showed that a supportive environment reduces workload effects on academics’ job satisfaction. This study contributes to confirming the important roles of career commitment and workload in predicting job satisfaction. It also expands literature on the buffering role of a supportive environment in the interaction between workload and job satisfaction among academics.