The Recognition Paradox and Training Inefficacy in Saudi Higher Education: A Conservation of Resources Perspective on Faculty Career Dynamics

Abstract

This study employs Conservation of Resources (COR) theory and the Organizational Embeddedness Theory as elucidating frameworks for examining the intersection of human resource (HR) practices and faculty careers with respect to higher education in Saudi Arabia. Using a public Saudi University faculty sample (N = 586) and employing Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), this study examines the HR practices of training and recognition, internal mobility, and the role of career success. The study reconceptualizes the training-ins mobility, recognition-ins mobility, and mobility-out career success relationships. This study refines the concept of the recognition-embeddedness trap, demonstrating that recognition acts as a resource anchor, increasing faculty’s embeddedness in their current positions rather than catalyzing mobility. This study proposes the training inefficacy hypothesis, suggesting that training faculty in bureaucratized academic systems where pathways are closed, leaves faculty training unutilized and faculty careers unadvanced. The findings also suggest that internal mobility is counterproductive within Saudi Arabia, where the frequent role changes of faculty signal a lack of adaptability rather than the presumed mobility. With regard to contract type and faculty nationality, this study extends previous work by showing that fixed-term faculty are subjected to more mobility than permanent faculty and that non-Saudi faculty experience different career patterns.

These results have the potential to develop theories on the career patterns of non-Western academics and develop pathways for non-Western policymakers to create HR policies that will meaningfully affect the careers of faculty.