Researchers have shown that the pursuit of doctoral studies is often related to the desire to become an academic, despite the constrained academic labour markets and changing (or deteriorating, as some have argued) academic working conditions (AWC) worldwide. In this study, we assessed the extent to which Chinese PhD students were aware of the…

Social support is a crucial factor in the academic engagement of doctoral students, which is vital to their overall success. While past studies have mostly focused on the support from doctoral supervisors, support from other significant groups, including institutions, peers and families, has been largely neglected, and even no study has…

Drawing on interviews with nine PhD students and twelve PhD graduates from a research university in Taiwan, this paper explores students' motivational profiles for pursuing a PhD at a time when that degree is increasingly decoupled from academic employment. Using self-determination theory as a conceptual lens, the paper identifies common enrolment…

This paper employs the notion of a "career script" as a conceptual basis to examine how age-based academic career norms are internalized, strategized, and reproduced among PhD students aspiring to become academics. It draws on interviews with 70 PhD students at leading universities in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau that were…

Research on the career trajectories of doctoral recipients often assumes that all PhD students begin in roughly the same starting position. Consequently, the impact of pre-programme experiences remains understudied. This qualitative study draws on 59 interviews with PhD students studying in mainland China and Hong Kong to explore the influence of…