Reciprocal Wellbeing in Higher Education

Abstract

It has been long understood that there are expectations that leaders support the wellbeing of their followers but when it comes to followers’ support for the wellbeing of leaders, this is less appreciated. This chapter offers insight from the research into wellbeing practices focused on faculty colleagues in the higher education. Using a sample of 254 faculty members with distinguishing administrative and non-administrative roles, as proxies for leaders and followers, the authors conducted a study on how higher education administrative faculty and non-administrative faculty members supported each other in terms of wellbeing. Based on this study, the authors present a chapter that explores the relational aspects of workplace wellbeing, how people feel at work, what worries them, their perceived marginal value from relationship with colleagues, marginal wellbeing issues and their mood state conditions, the minimization of distress, and the optimization of workplace wellbeing. The premise was that colleagues in these two role sets need to support the wellbeing of each other despite their roles and the authors set out to learn from both what this looked like in the lived experiences.

Citation

Nyarko, R. and Walker, K.D. (2024), "Reciprocal Wellbeing in Higher Education", Walker, K.D. and Kutsyuruba, B. (Ed.) The Emerald Handbook of Wellbeing in Higher Education: Global Perspectives on Students, Faculty, Leaders, and Institutions, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 169-182. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83797-504-420241012