This paper reports the findings of a study into the factors influencing psychological well-being of academic staff working in a U.K. Higher Education Institution. The study utilized the effort-reward imbalance (ERI) model as a framework to examine the balance between the effort academic staff commit to their work and the reward they receive in relation to the model's three reward systems: remuneration, career progression, and self-esteem. This study utilized qualitative methodology to investigate the experiences of academic staff engaged in predominantly teaching activities (n = 39). In particular, the focus groups considered the factors affecting the effort they commit to their work and the characteristics of work that help them feel rewarded. This allowed consideration of the ERI model's reward systems and exploration of a wider range of reward systems within an academic context. The findings reinforce the use of the ERI model for evaluating factors that influence the well-being of academic staff, providing insight into the extrinsic effort that academic staff commit to work, as well as recently evolved demands from student expectations and learning capability. Informal reward mechanisms, relating to student interaction and pedagogical impact, were found to have a prominent effect in helping academic staff feel rewarded for their work. This provides a possible explanation for academic staff overcommitment to their work in order to maintain informal sources of reward, in the absence of more formal institutional mechanisms. The limitations and implications for future research and practice, including possible interventions to restore effort-reward imbalance for academic staff, are discussed.

中文翻译：

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现金或荣誉：解决学术员工的努力与回报不平衡问题。

本文报告了一项关于影响在英国高等教育机构工作的学术人员心理健康的因素的研究结果。该研究利用努力-回报不平衡 (ERI) 模型作为框架来检查学术人员致力于工作的努力与他们获得的与模型的三个奖励系统相关的奖励之间的平衡：薪酬、职业发展和自我尊重。本研究使用定性方法来调查主要从事教学活动的学术人员的经验（n = 39）。特别是，焦点小组考虑了影响他们对工作付出的努力的因素以及帮助他们感到得到回报的工作特征。这允许考虑 ERI 模型' s 奖励制度和在学术背景下探索更广泛的奖励制度。研究结果加强了 ERI 模型在评估影响学术人员福祉的因素方面的使用，提供了对学术人员致力于工作的外在努力的洞察力，以及最近来自学生期望和学习能力的需求。研究发现，与学生互动和教学影响相关的非正式奖励机制在帮助教职员工感到工作得到回报方面具有显着效果。这为学术人员在缺乏更正式的制度机制的情况下为维持非正式的奖励来源而过度投入工作提供了可能的解释。对未来研究和实践的局限性和影响，