This study examines how role stressors and collegial support influence faculty work engagement in Chinese vocational universities. It positions vocational universities as skills-oriented higher education institutions where academic work is shaped by teaching, reform, administrative, and workplace-related expectations.
A cross-sectional online survey was conducted with 618 full-time faculty members. The study measured role ambiguity, role conflict, workload, collegial support, and work engagement using validated scales. Partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was used to test the structural model. The same structural model was estimated separately for female and male faculty, and the results were interpreted descriptively rather than as a formal multigroup comparison.
Role ambiguity and workload negatively predicted work engagement in both the female and male faculty models, whereas collegial support positively predicted work engagement. Role ambiguity also negatively influenced collegial support in both models. In the female faculty model, role conflict negatively predicted work engagement but positively predicted collegial support, producing a small positive indirect effect. Neither the direct relationship between role conflict and work engagement nor the relationship between role conflict and collegial support was supported in the male faculty model.
The study shifts attention from faculty engagement as an individual matter to the institutional conditions that enable it. It extends the job demands–resources (JD-R) model by showing that collegial support is not only a resource associated with faculty engagement but may also be shaped differently by specific role stressors. By distinguishing the estimated relationships among female and male faculty without claiming a formal gender-moderation effect, the study provides context-sensitive evidence on how role ambiguity, role conflict, workload, and collegial support operate within Chinese vocational universities. The findings show why role clarity and reliable collegial support are not peripheral concerns, but central management conditions for protecting faculty energy and commitment in reform-intensive universities.
