From “performance competition arena” to “psychological exemption zone”: psychological safety mechanisms in reverse mobility

In contemporary China, increasing numbers of Ph.D.-holding corporate professionals and new-generation doctoral-stage participants (Ph.D. candidates or Ph.D. graduates within 1, 2 years) prioritize university faculty or research posts (“reverse mobility”). Prior accounts have focused mainly on economic and institutional push, pull forces; consequently, the psychological and meaning-making processes driving this shift remain under-specified. Accordingly, reverse mobility is conceptualized as a form of setting-seeking, whereby individuals pursue work settings perceived as more restorative, predictable, and boundary-controllable. Using constructivist grounded theory, 47 participants (25 transitioners and 22 new-generation doctoral-stage participants) were interviewed, and iterative open, axial, selective coding with constant comparison and triangulation was conducted until theoretical saturation. Participants depict marketized workplaces as a “performance competition arena” characterized by KPI-driven value alienation, chronic exhaustion, and anticipatory insecurity. When perceived risk crosses a subjective threshold, psychological safety needs become salient and shift decisions from escape toward shelter seeking. Universities are then symbolically constructed as a “psychological exemption zone,” namely a perceived work setting that can reduce exposure to marketized performance risks and help restore recovery time, predictability, and control over work, life boundaries. This construction is supported by institutional shelter, time sovereignty, meaningful work, and community belonging. Participants then enact identity reconstruction, narrative management, and boundary work to turn this imagined safer setting into an actual career move and a subjective sense of relocation from one work world to another. Transitioners emphasize restoration after accumulated strain, whereas new-generation doctoral-stage participants foreground preventive risk avoidance. This study develops a dynamic process model integrating need-based mechanisms with risk perceptions, extending reverse-mobility research by foregrounding psychological safety and defensive career strategies.