Doing development differently: reframing academic development in the shadow of performance and scarcity

This study investigates how academic development (AD) is enacted in resource-constrained, performance-driven university contexts where formal structures are weak or absent. Drawing on qualitative data from a large private university in southwest China, the research introduces the concept of compressed institutional contexts to explain how academic work is reorganised under simultaneous demands for accountability, market responsiveness, and student outcomes. Rather than disappearing, AD is redistributed across overlapping roles and embedded within daily practices such as teaching, student support, and administrative coordination. The findings show that academic development persists in such contexts not through formalised centres or structured programmes, but as embedded and improvised practices woven into everyday academic work. Faculty development is increasingly shaped by institutional performance logics, including employability outcomes and evaluative targets, rather than by pedagogical ideals or reflective enhancement alone. Professional growth occurs primarily through multi-role enactment and real-time adaptation, as academics learn by integrating teaching, administration, and coordination responsibilities under conditions of institutional urgency. By reframing academic development as an organisationally situated and practice-based process, this paper contributes to a more inclusive understanding of AD that accounts for non-elite, market-facing, and resource-constrained institutions.