MAJCAFE

Siti Rosnita Sakarji, Ayu Kamareenna Abdullah Thani
Faculty of Business and Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA Kelantan Campus
Abdul Kadir Othman
Institute of Business Excellence (IBE), Universiti Teknologi MARA Shah Alam
Nurbarirah Ahmad
Faculty of Business and Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA Melaka Campus

DOI: https://doi.org/10.60016/majcafe.v30.17

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Abstract

Mental health has gained a lot of attention recently, especially because of the COVID-19 outbreak. COVID-19 compelled learning systems to transition away from face-to-face interaction and towards online learning. While most studies have focused on its influence on students, the academics have received little attention. Concerning it, this study aimed to create a theoretical framework that explained the influence of job demands on academics’ mental health. This conceptual paper explained how job demands (workload, role conflict, work-life imbalance) link demanding and resourceful aspects of one domain to outcomes in the other domain, using insights from the Job-Demand Resources model, which postulates a health impairment and motivational process. Self-administered online survey techniques will be implemented to obtain responses from the respondents. The structure, reliability, and validity of this unidimensional with a few items measured was constructed and focused on four independent heterogeneous samples of academicians employed in Malaysia (N=370). Three hypotheses were formulated in this conceptual paper based on the previous considerations and the JD-R model assumptions. The contributions and implications of this study are discussed especially those that will benefit the developing country context, Malaysia.

Keywords:  job demands, workload, role conflict, work-life imbalance, mental health