A Review of Scientific Papers on the (Tele) Work of Postgraduate Professors

Abstract

Before the implementation of compulsory remote work due to the Covid-19 pandemic, postgraduate professors already exercised telework in their homes, informally. Thus, the objective is to analyze the scientific production of telework or work of postgraduate professors. A systematic review of articles in the SCOPUS, Web of Science, and Scielo databases and of theses and dissertations in the Brazilian Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations was carried out. We sought to classify the research found by themes and identify the content of the results that researchers found. There was a significant amount of work on the evaluation of postgraduate studies or professors, in search of improvements. Problems were noted in the professor's work in relation to the lack of training for teaching, university environment with few resources, complex activities and in a quantity that extrapolates the time of service, evaluation by results that causes negative consequences in the performance of activities as in the personal life of the professor. Telework was found in different contexts, such as ubiquitous work and the digital age, distance education, pleasure and suffering at work, and as a dimension that addresses teaching work. Since professors have already experimented with teleworking and compulsory remote work, they are subject to the positivities and negativities that it can cause, which may or may not facilitate the improvement of the problems pointed out. The research contributes to the human resources management area, by seeking to understand how professors-researchers have used this modality outside universities and potential research gaps, such as identification of control of professors’ telework since it is subjective and complex; more precise identification of the profile of professors who telework and what type; how teleworking affects the issues raised by research on professors' work; and, how was the experience of compulsory remote work during the pandemic.