Purpose: Institutions judge faculty, departments, and themselves by research output, but the pathway connecting well-being investment to that output is rarely specified. Here, Organisational Well-being (OWB) is treated not as a background condition but as a resource with a traceable payoff in Research Productivity, one that could plausibly travel through Faculty Burnout, through Work Engagement, or directly. Design/Methodology/Approach: 384 full-time faculty from government, private, deemedto-be, and autonomous institutions in Bengaluru completed a validated five-point-scale survey. A twostage structural equation model was fitted – measurement first, structure second – with mediation confirmed through bias-corrected bootstrapped intervals. Findings: Model fit was acceptable to good (CFI = .94, TLI = .93, RMSEA = .058, SRMR = .051), and both convergent and discriminant validity held. Well-being kept a direct line to productivity (β = .21, p = .004) even once both psychological routes were accounted for; the burnout route (indirect β = .15) and the engagement route (indirect β = .22) each carried a separate, statistically confirmed share of the effect. Originality/Value: Few studies place burnout and engagement side by side as competing explanations for the well-being-toproductivity link, and fewer still do so for Indian higher education. This paper closes that gap. Practical Implications: Because the dividend splits across three channels rather than collapsing into one, institutions have more than a single lever – and more than a single justification – for investing in faculty well-being.