The effect of teacher collaboration on teachers' career well-being in China: A moderated mediation model of teacher self-efficacy and distributed leadership

The mechanisms and boundary conditions through which teacher collaboration influences teachers career well-being remain insufficiently explored. To address this gap, this study aimed to examine the relationship between teacher collaboration and teachers' career well-being based on the conservation of resources theory, revealing the mediating role of self-efficacy between them, as well as the moderating role of distributed leadership in this mediation model, utilizing a sample of 3159 Shanghai teachers from the 2018 Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) database. The results showed that teacher collaboration was significantly and positively related to both teachers' career well-being and self-efficacy. Self-efficacy was significantly and positively related to teachers' career well-being. Self-efficacy mediated the relationship between teacher collaboration and teachers' career well-being. Distributed leadership not only positively moderated the relationship between teacher collaboration and teachers' career well-being but also positively moderated the relationship between teacher collaboration and teachers' self-efficacy. In addition, distributed leadership moderated the mediating effect of self-efficacy between teacher collaboration and teachers' career well-being. These findings offered important theoretical and practical implications for promoting teachers' career well-being, which were discussed in detail. Copyright © 2025 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.