Understanding Work Engagement Among Private University Lecturers: The Roles of Job Demands, Job Resources, and Basic Psychological Needs

Work engagement has become an important indicator of employee well-being and organizational effectiveness in higher education institutions. However, maintaining high levels of work engagement among private university lecturers remains a significant challenge due to increasing job demands, limited organizational resources, and psychological pressures associated with academic responsibilities. Although the Job Demands–Resources (JD-R) model has been widely used to explain work engagement, previous studies have primarily focused on the direct effects of job demands and job resources while paying limited attention to the underlying psychological mechanisms through which these factors influence lecturers' engagement. Drawing upon the Job Demands–Resources Theory and Self-Determination Theory, this conceptual paper proposes an integrated framework that explains the relationships among job demands, job resources, basic psychological needs, and work engagement. Specifically, the paper argues that job resources enhance lecturers' work engagement by satisfying their needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness, whereas excessive job demands may undermine the fulfillment of these psychological needs, leading to lower work engagement. Basic psychological needs are therefore proposed as a mediating mechanism linking the work environment with employee engagement. The proposed framework contributes to the organizational psychology literature by integrating two complementary theoretical perspectives to better understand work engagement in the context of private higher education institutions. In addition, the model offers practical implications for university leaders and human resource practitioners in designing organizational policies that strengthen lecturers' psychological well-being and sustainable work engagement. Future empirical studies are recommended to validate the proposed conceptual model using structural equation modeling across different higher education settings.

Work engagement; Job demands; Job resources; Basic psychological needs; Self-Determination Theory; Job Demands–Resources Theory; Private university lecturers

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