Research agendas and job dissatisfaction among Hong Kong academics

Research agendas and organizational commitment among academics in mainland China

“…The finding that academics in STEM fields were engaged in significantly more innovative (especially, more scientifically ambitious, divergent, and collaborative) research agendas than were their non-STEM peers is aligned with previous findings (Kim et al, 2014 ; Santos et al, 2021 ; Zhang & Horta, 2022 ). The collaborative nature of work in STEM fields is a good starting point for explaining it.…”

“…For example, knowing that trailblazing research agendas contribute to adaptive organizational commitment (i.e., AC, NC, and IC), academics could become more mindful of engaging in innovative research. Especially, because the present research revealed that female academics, older academics, and academics in non-STEM fields lagged behind their respective counterparts in pursuing innovative research, as did previous studies (Horta & Santos, 2020 ; Zhang & Horta, 2022 ; Zhang et al, 2020 ), the aforementioned groups of academics should make extra efforts in pursuing trailblazing research agendas. Moreover, because the result that academics in non-STEM fields expressed less adaptive organizational commitment confirmed previous findings (Zhang, 2015 ; Zhang et al, 2017 ), academics in non-STEM fields should be more conscious of cultivating within themselves adaptive organizational commitment by, say, engaging in innovative research.…”

“…Namely, more frequent collaborative work would necessarily provide STEM academics with more opportunities to be exposed to different ideas and thus more opportunities to be engaged in problem-solving, both of which are conducive to the creation of big ideas (Sawyer, 2007 ). Creative ideas are the cornerstone for a scientifically ambitious research agenda (Zhang & Horta, 2022 ).…”

“…Drawing from the MDRAI, Zhang et al ( 2020 ) developed a 12-item version of the MDRAI (referred to as the MDRAI-12 hereafter) assessing six research agendas—four trailblazing (i.e., scientific ambition, discovery, divergence, and collaboration) and two cohesive (i.e., conservative and convergence) ones. The participants indicated the degree to which each statement represented their research situation on a 7-point Likert scale, with “1” indicating “not at all well” and “7” indicating “extremely well” (see “ Discussion ” for sample items and Zhang & Horta, 2022 for full version of the MDRAI-12).…”

“…More recent studies (Horta & Santos, 2020 ; Santos et al, 2020 ; Zhang & Horta, 2022 ; Zhang et al, 2020 ) have demonstrated that six of the eight research agendas (all except mentor influence and tolerance for low funding) are value laden: trailblazing research agendas are more adaptive, and cohesive research agendas are more maladaptive. Particularly, trailblazing research agendas were significantly associated with adaptive attributes, including desirable personality traits (e.g., conscientiousness and open mindedness), creative teaching and thinking styles, and job satisfaction, whereas cohesive research agendas were significantly related to more maladaptive attributes, including undesirable personality traits (e.g., neuroticism), norm-favoring teaching and thinking styles, and job dissatisfaction (Horta & Santos, 2020 ; Santos et al, 2020 ; Zhang & Horta, 2022 ; Zhang et al, 2020 ). Conceptualized as motivational goals concerning academics’ research, research agendas have not been examined against the construct of organizational commitment—an important theoretical construct in Meyer et al’s ( 2004 ) integrative model of employee commitment and motivation.…”