Beyond Quiet Quitting: An Exploration of Early Career Research Assistants' Workplace Experiences and Quiet Cracking Phenomenon in Higher Education Institutions

Abstract

Using a phenomenologically informed qualitative design and directed qualitative content analysis, the study examined interviews with nine early-career academics aged 24 to 38 years and with 3 to 10 years of professional experience. The analytic process was predominantly deductive and was organised around six a priori, theory-informed domains derived from the study’s conceptual framework: job insecurity, emotional exhaustion, psychological contract breach, job burnout, organisational cynicism, and quiet quitting. Within these domains, participants’ accounts were examined to identify context-specific meanings, manifestations, similarities, and differences related to workplace strain and disengagement. Participants’ accounts suggest that precarious contract conditions, excessive administrative workloads, and blurred work-life boundaries were associated with emotional detachment, reduced discretionary effort, and controlled withdrawal, which they often framed as a coping response to persistent work strain. The findings further indicate that sustained psychological contract violations and organisational cynicism may contribute to more intensified forms of disengagement and psychological erosion. Rather than presenting “quiet cracking” as a fully established construct, the study treats it as an emerging and contested interpretive concept that may help explain cumulative strain among early-career academics.