Abstract
We are pleased to welcome readers to this special issue, which is focused on an important topic facing management educators today: the mental wellness of ourselves, our colleagues, and our students. We present five articles concerning the mental health and psychological well-being of undergraduate students, doctoral students, and faculty working in management and business schools. At the core of this issue is the idea of mental health, which The World Health Organization (2004) defines as “a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community” (p. 10). While exact definitions can vary by culture (Thomas et al., 2015), key aspects of the definition include the ability to cope with stress and sadness, enjoyment of life, a sense of connection to others, and the ability to fulfil one’s potential (O'Reilly & Lester, 2017). More broadly, mental ill-health is a term that the Hunter Institute of Mental Health (2015) defines as encompassing both mental health problems and mental illness. The former refers to issues that interfere with a person’s cognitive, emotional, or social abilities, but do not necessarily meet the criteria for mental illness; while the latter entails a clinical diagnosis and interferes with a person’s life more significantly.
LaMontagne et al. (2014) point out that, across the world, there is increasing emphasis on the need to promote mental health and prevent mental illness, particularly in relation to what are known as “common mental disorders” of depression and anxiety which have not shown any recent signs of decreased prevalence (see also Jorm et al., 2017). These conditions have enormous social and economic impacts including loss of life, reduced capacity to work, substance misuse, family and relationship distress, costs associated with absenteeism, early retirement, and employee compensation (McDaid et al., 2019).
With respect to educators, recent studies and media reports (e.g., see Guthrie et al, 2017; Krause, 2018; Thomas, 2014) tell us that a large number of university academics are reporting symptoms of stress, burnout, anxiety, and depression. Moreover, university students today are also increasingly likely to experience mental illness (Browne et al., 2017; Eisenberg et al., 2013). For example, Levecque et al. (2017), in a study of mental health issues in graduate students, reported that 51% experienced psychological distress. In another study, Evans et al. (2018) concluded that around 40% of graduate students experienced symptoms of mental illness. Guthrie et al. (2017) also found that faculty are similarly affected, such that “proportions of both university staff and postgraduate students with a risk of having or developing a mental health problem, based on self-reported evidence, were generally higher than for other working populations” (p. xv). In 2020, several authors (see Hart, 2020; Langin, 2020; Woolston, 2020) have emphasized that the COVID-19 pandemic raises even greater concerns about doctoral student well-being.
While there is clear evidence for rising mental health issues in academia generally (Shaw, 2014), we seem to know relatively little about the situation in business schools. While some authors (e.g., Curran et al., 2009; Kotera et al., 2019; Malmborg et al., 2017; Tsui & Wing, 2009) have investigated stress and mental illness in undergraduate business students, few have considered the experiences of doctoral students, early career researchers, and faculty. Yet there is reason to believe that people in all of these groups are particularly at risk of experiencing poor mental health. In a recent commentary, for example, Harley (2019) argued that a crisis of confidence has emerged in management education, driven by ongoing developments in business schools around the world, which include greater pressure to publish in a small number of top journals and increasing rationalization of business school structures. Matthews (2017) noted further that many MBA students experience high levels of stress, and anecdotal evidence indicates that they may be particularly reluctant to engage in help-seeking behavior. We suggest that the highly competitive culture in business schools (see DeAngelo et al., 2005; Parker, 2018) and high workloads (Adrian et al., 2014) are likely to exacerbate mental health problems.
Researchers examining these issues in the business disciplines have explored some important and relevant topics, such as stress in business students (e.g., Stixrud, 2012), faculty cynicism (Bedeian, 2007), the distressing impact of manuscript rejection (Day, 2011), the impact of a traumatic event on classroom teaching (Clair et al., 2002), and how senior management scholars set a poor example for incoming faculty (Harley, 2019). Our knowledge of the mental health and well-being of management educators and students seems still to be in its infancy, however. There are therefore multiple avenues for future research, and we hope that the articles in this special issue will stimulate ideas and encourage more researchers to pursue work in this area.
Mental Health in Academia
A wealth of research on the context of academia indicates that both students (e.g., see Barry et al., 2018; Woolston, 2019) and academics (Gorczynski et al., 2017) experience poor mental health. Moreover, and as Kessler et al. (2007) report, research indicates that around three fourths of mental illnesses emerge by the mid-20s. Hence, undergraduate university students are a well-recognized, high-risk group for experiencing psychological distress and mental ill-health (Reavley et al., 2012). Liu (2009) also found elevated levels of psychological distress among international students studying at American universities.
With respect to graduate students, in a survey in the United States conducted by the University of California–Berkeley Graduate Assembly (2014), researchers found that almost 47% of PhD students reported symptoms of depression, as compared with 37% of Master’s students. In a more recent study, Levecque et al. (2017) assessed the mental health of graduate students and found that at least one third were at risk of developing a common mental illness. Similarly, Evans et al. (2018) found that many students experience moderate to severe anxiety (41%) and depression (39%). In the Australian context, Barry et al. (2018) found that students reported higher levels of depression, anxiety, and stress as compared with the general population (which is consistent with results from international studies, cf. Evans et al., 2018).
As Evans et al. (2018) detail, the reasons graduate students experience mental health issues are many and varied, although poor work-life balance and relationships with supervisors figure prominently. Evans and her associates further report that these problems are exacerbated for women and transgender/gender-nonconforming students. Doctoral students in all disciplines face multiple demands while completing their studies; these can include difficulty managing relationships with advisors, lack of social support, and financial stress and funding uncertainties, all of which contribute to reduced psychological well-being (for a review, see Sverdlik et al., 2018).
The “casualization” of both professional staff and faculty working in universities is another trend occurring worldwide as management seeks to reduce costs (Nadolny & Ryan, 2015). The practice is particularly prevalent in Australia, where data from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency revealed that casualization rates exceed 40% in approximately two thirds of the nation’s universities (Long, 2018). Academics in the United States also face similar conditions, where adjunct faculty and non-tenure track positions have increased and the number of full-time tenure-track staff in business schools has dropped during the past decade (Shinn, 2016). The consequences of these changes for staff in the university sector have been well-documented; these include lack of time for professional development (Klopper & Power, 2014), low engagement (Thirolf & Woods, 2017), and poor psychological health (McGann et al., 2016). In the current COVID-19 pandemic, some universities are laying off staff in response to reduced income from international student enrolments (Davies, 2020). Many casual tutors/Teaching Assistants have lost jobs that would normally provide part-time employment and income to supplement graduate research scholarships or living allowances.
Even among tenured faculty, anxiety around forced redundancies and layoffs is palpable at present (McGraw et al., 2020; McKie, 2020). This comes on top of the known psychosocial risk factors affecting academic mental health such as workload and performance pressures, interpersonal stressors, and a wide range of other factors associated with the Job Demand-Control and Person–Environment Fit models of job stress (Winefield & Jarrett, 2001). Preventing burnout, reduced engagement and productivity loss among academic staff is not only critical to quality of life, innovation and high performance; it affects student well-being in a “cross-over” fashion (Martin, 2008). The attitudes of educators have been shown to have a significant influence on whether students purport a sense of inclusion (Milligan, 2010). Educators are also increasingly expected to act as “gatekeepers” or “first-line responders” who are expected to recognize when students are distressed; and to influence them to seek appropriate help, such as by referring them to university support resources (Quinn et al., 2009; Savini, 2016).
Mental Health in Business Schools
Most readers of this journal will be familiar with the discussions in the academic literature (as well as the popular press) about the culture in today’s business schools. For example, Pfeffer and Fong (2002) suggested that business schools have lost direction and foreshadow “the end of business schools” (p. 78). As we have already noted, Harley (2019) has suggested that senior scholars who boast about publishing achievements and long work hours reinforce an unrealistic “myth” of workaholism; when this occurs, “some early-career scholars are likely to see such exemplars, who are surely outliers, as typical of scholars in their field” (p. 293). In turn, this can lead to impostor syndrome, as well as feelings of inadequacy and disappointment.
It is important also to acknowledge that the nature of work in universities has changed dramatically in the past several decades. For example, Sang et al. (2015) note that modern academic culture internationally is characterized by long work hours, increasing emphasis on performance measurement, and blurring of work–life boundaries. Business schools are no exception (see De Vita & Case, 2016). For example, in a study of full-time academics in business schools in the United Kingdom, McCarthy and Dragouni (2020) found that increasing demands, such as reduced work–life balance and greater workloads, coupled with fewer resources were associated with greater staff turnover and burnout. There also is evidence that the “publish or perish” culture can contribute to stress among management faculty (Miller et al., 2011), with tenure-track faculty suffering the most. Yet it is notable that distress among academics is rarely discussed openly, and many are reluctant to acknowledge the toxicity of the work context. As Fleming (2019) argues in a critique of the neoliberal business school, “Melancholy is deemed a personal failing rather than a byproduct of a needlessly callous environment” (p. 1306).
While we do not currently have specific representative data on rates of mental illness among management students or faculty, nor how they compare with other academic disciplines, the research reviewed in the foregoing indicates that there is almost certainly a critical need for interventions and reforms in the business and management education context.
The Articles in This Issue
Following our call for papers addressing issues of mental health and psychological well-being among students and faculty, we received 21 excellent articles. Submissions covered all facets of the topic, including investigations of the social determinants of undergraduate student mental health, the role of university structures in faculty stress and coping, how student influence tactics affect faculty well-being, and the relationship between stress and learning in undergraduate students.
In the end, we accepted five articles that were especially outstanding in terms of insightful analysis of the main issues, and the rigorous approaches that authors adopted. The topics covered by the five articles range from an educator’s lived experience with mental illness, how academics can identify specific spaces for restoration, a discussion of the experiences of racialized international students, a classroom intervention to increase students’ positive emotions and well-being, and an empirical investigation of social support, imposter syndrome, and mental ill-health in doctoral students.
In the first article, author Maria Alejandra Quijada provides a sensitive account of her experience with clinical depression as a new faculty member. She describes the impact of the illness on her well-being and performance, particularly how it affected her opportunity to advance in her career, and also discusses her experiences with stigma. She provides advice for faculty and administrators about how to effectively support colleagues with a mental illness and argues for “a more holistic and kinder academy.” Here, she offers several recommendations, including that the tenure clock be adjusted for individuals struggling with mental health issues and that administrators should recognize publication quality rather than volume of output. She provides a compelling argument against the “publish or perish” mentality and advocates for the development of a culture of wellness in the academy. First-person narratives are relatively rare in this space, and her essay provides a unique and valuable insight into her personal journey.
Quijada (2021) also makes an important point: educators with lived experience of mental illness can connect with students in ways that other faculty might not, and that sharing our stories is a powerful way to reduce stigma. She notes that she has deliberately shared her mental health challenges with her students and at the same time emphasizes the value of seeking help. In doing so, she normalizes the experience and demonstrates that she can empathize with students’ struggles. We hope this essay will encourage other academics with lived experience of mental illness to share their stories in future to contribute to our understanding of mental illness in the academy and show others that they are not alone.
In the second article, by Nicholas D. Rhew, David R. Jones, Linda M. Sama, Sarah Robinson, Victor J. Friedman, and Mark Egan, the authors address the issue of “restorative spaces,” which serve to encourage us to share stories of our well-being management strategies, creating space for fellowship and discourse around their application in contemporary academic life. As a rationale, Rhew et al. (2021) offer a thought-provoking analysis of the policy and operational contexts that have led to high levels of work stress for academic workforces around the world. They discuss concepts of resources, recovery and restoration as ways of dealing with stress and through six narrative vignettes they share stories of how these “spaces” are experienced by the authors of the paper. Rural retreats, singing, swimming, golf, marking holidays, and the spiritual practice of Shabbat are all described as idiosyncratic ways of protecting and promoting one’s mental health and well-being. Given self-care represents only one side of the mental health coin, Rhew et al. conclude their article with a list of recommendations for university leadership.
Disciplines that study the social determinants of health have highlighted an increased risk of psychological distress and mental illness associated with being in a minority group and experiencing racism (e.g., Kwate & Goodman, 2015). As management educators, we have a social responsibility to consider strategies and practices that promote interpersonal justice among the student body. Often, we also have an opportunity to influence understanding of racialized aspects of organizational justice via the future or current business and management practices of our students.
In the third article, which explores the issue of racism experienced by international students in leading business schools, authors ML Wei and Benita Bunjun call for discussions around health and well-being in business schools to acknowledge the substantial impact of racism on the mental health of international students. The significant issues these authors highlight in their article include underutilization of counseling services, a lack of diversity in support providers, common experiences of alienation and rejection, and constant pressure to appease and assimilate (on top of academic and financial stressors experienced by many students).
Encouraging us to recognize that “experiences of exclusion extend far beyond who is in whose group” for assessments, Wei and Bunjun (2021) suggest a range of practical strategies for interventions with which they have experience. These include providing greater opportunity for social connection, minority-peer network development and facilitation, exploring mental health-related aspects of students’ experiences, mentorship of marginalized groups of students; and developing our understanding of the political, social, and geographical contexts of our students. Their contribution in this article is toward a vision of “inclusion, affirmation, and leadership for racialized international students.”
In the fourth article, author Maria Hamdani describes and analyses the effectiveness of a 5-week “Positive Emotions Project” (PEP), which she designed to teach a range of different techniques and skills to improve students’ positivity and well-being. Hamdani (2021) devised her program based on a clinical well-being instructional course, originally developed by Moskowitz et al. (2012), and intended to increase trainees’ positive affect and sense of well-being. The modified program she outlines focuses on eight well-being skills: (1) noticing and capitalizing on positive events, (2) gratitude, (3) formal mindfulness, (4) informal mindfulness, (5) positive reappraisal, (6) recognizing personal strengths, (7) setting attainable goals, and (8) performing acts of kindness. Within the 5-week instructional program, one or two of the skills are introduced and taught each week using an experiential approach. Recommended assessment includes three components: (1) overview and quiz, (2) daily journals, and (3) a 1000-word reflection paper. Hamdani evaluated the effectiveness of the program by collecting qualitative and quantitative data from four sections of an OB course she was teaching, including a control-experimental group study. Results indicated that students clearly benefited from the training in terms of improved positive affect and well-being across a range of criteria. She concludes by discussing the research and practical implications of her work and recommends that management educators should employ PEP-style programs as a means to improve student positive affect and well-being.
Authors of the final article, Adam Pervez, Lisa L. Brady, Ken Mullane, Kevin D. Lo, Andrew A. Bennett, and Terry A. Nelson, employed quantitative and qualitative research methodologies to study the effects among management doctoral students of “impostor syndrome,” which Clance and Imes (1978) define in terms of persistent feelings of self-doubt, fraudulence, and impending failure; and how this can contribute to depression and anxiety symptoms among these students as well as degrading their psychological well-being. Pervez et al. (2021) also looked at whether social support from family, friends, advisors, and classmates can help to ameliorate such symptoms. Results demonstrated that, compared with the general adult population, management doctoral students experience significantly more symptoms of depression and anxiety; and that these appear to be related to the presence of impostor syndrome among these students. While the presence of social support related significantly and negatively to anxiety and depression symptoms, social support appeared to be unrelated to students’ feelings of impostor syndrome. In a follow-up qualitative study, the authors found that three types of support may nonetheless be important means to ameliorate impostor syndrome among students: (1) appraisal support relating to students’ self-evaluations; (2) emotional support from advisors, classmates, family, and friends; and (3) informational support, which refers to the information needed to problem-solve. The authors conclude with a list of recommendations for improving management doctoral students’ depression and anxiety symptoms and reducing impostor syndrome, including training advisors to recognize signs of distress and improving students’ access to university mental health services.
Future Directions
The five articles in this special issue provide multiple avenues for further research into mental health, mental illness and psychological well-being in management education. First, we encourage researchers to collect representative data on rates of mental illness in business schools. Management scholars should also investigate the antecedents and consequences of mental illness in faculty, especially how mental ill-health affects faculty members’ performance, particularly with respect to their teaching and research output. Potential topics in this regard include how mental health issues may affect faculty at different stages of their careers, and how educators’ lived experiences with mental illness affect their interactions with students. We expect that Quijada’s (2021) account in this special issue will help encourage more educators to come forward with their experiences. We emphasize that focusing on mental ill-health alone, however, is not sufficient; as Rhew et al. (2021) and Hamdani (2021) argue, it is important to consider how we can promote well-being in faculty and students.
As Pervez et al. (2021) observe, there is a need to focus our attention on the experiences of doctoral students and consider how to best support their well-being. Few researchers to date have investigated the experiences of doctoral students in business schools and identifying how doctoral students’ experiences vary across disciplines represents an important area for future research. We contend that scholars should also consider the mental ill-health and well-being of early career researchers, especially postdoctoral students and those in tenure-track versus non-tenure track positions; as noted already, this is especially important in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Finally, we suggest that researchers need to identify the strategies and approaches that will enable us to address the problems experienced by faculty and students in business schools (cf. Edwards & Ashkanasy, 2018), and proactively promote wellness in academia. Major questions include the following: How can we create cultures in business schools that value and prioritize faculty wellness? How can we best support the mental health of students from marginalized groups in business schools, such as racialized international students (Wei & Bunjun, 2021)? What are the most effective approaches to reduce stigma about mental illness in the context of business schools?
Conclusions
Mental health is one of the most prominent social and economic concerns globally; and the COVID-19 pandemic has only made the issues more urgent and complex. Universities around the world have as their primary stakeholders a group that is increasingly psychologically distressed with some estimates suggesting one in five students show symptoms of a mental illness (Stallman, 2010). We hope that the articles in this special issue stimulate thought among faculty to begin to consolidate or to advance their own pedagogical, professional/personal development, or pastoral care practices in the area of mental health and well-being. As educators and mentors we need to practice self-care and activate strategies to manage high workload demands, performance pressures and institutional challenges that can lead to burnout. This is important for two reasons: (1) burnout can put us at higher risk of depression and anxiety ourselves and (2) burnout can lead to depersonalization of our students who may look to us for support, potentially blocking an opportunity to promote help-seeking.
It is also vital to recognize that the stigma of mental ill-health remains a barrier to promoting effective organizational responses. In this case, organizations can use structured interventions to reduce the stigma around mental ill-health and increase academic leaders’ willingness to implement preventative actions (Shann et al., 2019). This is especially important for changing the organizational climate around mental ill-health disclosure and support. Such interventions (Shann et al., 2019) may be particularly important in business schools (and academia generally) insofar as faculty and their students are generally specialists in their fields of expertise and may not have had management or personal development forms of education/training.
Finally, we contend that it is important to remember that academics are role models for students, especially in the field of management. As Clair et al. (2002) observed, “Because business schools espouse training students to be effective in the world of management, professors arguably act as role models, shaping students’ beliefs and ideas about their upcoming roles in the business world” (p. 52). Therefore, we argue that we must find ways to build a culture of wellness in business schools and also promote psychological health in our own lives to be authentic and inspirational agents for change. There is also a strong rationale for teaching business and management students about mental health and its management in the workplace to develop capability and help create organizational changes that are needed across all industries and professions (cf. Martin et al., 2015).
Finally, in addition to this special issue, we point readers toward emerging general frameworks for university student mental health and well-being for guidance regarding a comprehensive approach to developing the mental health and well-being strategies of business schools. See for example some of the following websites/articles for inspiration:
