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The purpose of this paper is to focus on the relationship between college and university faculty collegiality, conceptualized as a set of prosocial behaviors, and job satisfaction.

A multi-level structural equation model was developed to examine the relationship between faculty collegiality and job satisfaction at the individual and institutional levels, the effects of gender and race/ethnicity, the effect of institutional type (i.e. research universities vs non-research universities), and whether institutional-level perceptions of faculty collegiality and job satisfaction influence perceptions of faculty collegiality and job satisfaction at the individual level.

Faculty collegiality was highly and significantly related to job satisfaction at the individual level (0.86) and at the institutional level (0.93). At the individual level, pretenured women faculty and faculty of color indicated significantly lower levels of collegiality. At the institutional level, pretenured faculty interactions with tenured faculty colleagues were positively and significantly related to individual-level perceptions of faculty collegiality.

Study limitations include self-report data that were dependent upon accurate responses from faculty participants, and cross-sectional data. Future analyses could extend study findings by examining the influence of faculty collegiality upon such outcomes as faculty productivity and retention in future multi-level analyses.

It is recommended that interventions be undertaken to embed prosocial behaviors into faculty research, teaching, and service activities, and to foster relationships between pretenured and tenured faculty members.

This paper underscores the importance of collecting nationally representative faculty data and conducting rigorous multi-level analyses to inform higher education policy and practice.

In contrast to prior studies examining burnout in academic employees, this paper explores how academic employee agency mitigates burnout risks in the context of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) and how this agency facilitates research productivity and influences well-being in the face of changes in learning and teaching practices.

The authors use collaborative auto-ethnography (CAE) in the higher education (HE) sector to probe how an employee productivity group supported the group's members during the pandemic.

Thematic analysis revealed four emerging themes: burnout, beneficial habits for research productivity, blocking-out-time and belonging. The authors' findings suggest that by acknowledging and legitimising employee-initiated groups, feelings of neglect can be combatted. Purposeful employee groups have the potential to create a therapeutic, safe space and, in addition to the groups' productivity intent, diminish the negative effects of a crisis on organisational effectiveness.

This paper contributes to the literature by utilising a CAE approach to provide greater insight into how academics enact agency by creating digital research workspaces, attending to the spatial dimensions of well-being especially during turbulent times.