Norms at Work: Well-being, Performance and Hyper-Competition in Academia

Abstract

Academia, like many other industries, is characterised by highly competitive and individualistic norms, often portrayed as necessary to increase performance. Using rich survey data from business schools, we develop a novel way to measure hyper-competitive norms and show that they are strongly negatively correlated with employee wellbeing. We then examine why they persist in spite of their negative consequences and find this lower well-being is not compensated by higher performance (research output and quality is also lower); nor is it the case that they benefit men over women (they are equally harmful for both); nor do they promote “star” performers. However, scholars believe they are more productive in those environments (even if they are not), which can explain the persistence of these “bad” norms.