Does Academic Publishing Lead to Work-Related Stress or Happiness?

The topic of work-related stress and happiness has recently been of interest to science as well as in practice. Work-related stress has negative effects on workers, organizations, and the whole of society, whereas happiness has positive effects. It is therefore important to monitor the wellbeing of workers. This article deals with stress and happiness as related to academic publishing. To answer the research question of whether academic publishing leads to stress or happiness, a narrative analysis was conducted. Narratives from ten Czech academics were collected and analyzed with the use of a categorical-content approach. The categories used are the general causes of work-related stress and happiness as identified in the literature: work overload, ambiguity, conflict, the sense of meaningful work, job satisfaction, and affective organizational commitment. It was found that academic publishing leads to both work-related stress and happiness. However, stress is more prevalent. Not only do academics experience all the general causes of work-related stress, unfortunately they often lack the sources of happiness. Many specific causes of stress and happiness, as well as unhappiness, were discovered in the narratives. Several ways to improve the situation have been suggested. Refining policies in human resources is particularly important if universities wish to retain their academics.