Constructions of success in academia: an early career perspective

Abstract

Expectations around success in academia vary, and early career academics often receive conflicting messages about what they should concentrate on to achieve promotion or tenure. Taking a social constructionist approach, this paper considers the constructs of objective and subjective career success in academia and shares the perspectives of early career academics in three countries in relation to these narratives. Key findings are that objective career success in academia dominates the literature but remains ill-defined in the minds of the early career academics to whom the measures are applied, and that subjective career success in academia needs both more research attention and more consideration in promotion, tenure, and workload deliberations and policies.

Keywords:

• early career academics
• objective career success
• subjective career success
• faculty satisfaction

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. This metaphor is not as perverse as it may first appear: at my university, adjunct, assistant and tutoring staff are referred to as the ‘sub-lecturer pool.’

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ako Aotearoa National Centre for Tertiary Teaching Excellence National Project Fund [RI10-023].