A metaphorical Reading of the Phenomenon of Surviving Jealousy in the Iranian Higher Education System: Experiences of the Ilam University’sConditional Faculty Members

The metaphor of “Survivor’s Envy " refers to the perceived jealousy of an employee compared to other colleagues' job status. The present study is an applied one in terms of purpose and has been done qualitatively with in-depth and guided interviews in terms of data gathering. The purpose of this study was to understand the lived experience of the Ilam university conditional faculty members from Survivor's Envy phenomenon, which was done by phenomenological method. At Ilam University, all faculty members with conditional contract status were 40 people, 18 of whom were purposefully selected and interviewed until theoretical saturation thematic analysis approach has been used to analyze the data obtained from the interviews. Findings are categorized into one theme, five main themes and thirteen subthemes. Considering the negative consequences of survivor's envy, including not motivating, hopelessness, emotional pressure, stress and etc; universities and higher education centers need to identify this phenomenon and its impact on the educational, research and cultural activities of faculty members, to adopt constructive actions to improve career promotions in universities and manage the phenomenon of Survivor's Envy.