The Perceived Complexity of Well-Being Within the Change and Development in Higher Education

Abstract In Finland, the higher education system is facing many societal, demographic, and pedagogical changes that inevitably also have an impact on various members of the university community who face them in their everyday work and studies at the universities. This research focused on a systemic and interdisciplinary approach and analyzed the elements of well-being during the changes that occurred in the university consortium. The consortium, formed by a scientific university and a university of applied sciences, is considered here as an example of the changing world of work in higher education (HE). The research question set for this research was: How do the members of the consortium perceive well-being in the systemic development? This paper reports on our phenomenographic research in which 29 members of a northern Finnish university consortium were interviewed with the focus group interview method. The findings showed that their perceptions were related to experiences, interaction, and competence within the development work, and covered various dimensions of the consortium, ranging all the way from the individual level to the surrounding society. Viewed using the framework for a positive university, suggestions for leading well-being within the development of higher education are presented. The findings are also discussed in the light of international scalability.