Shifting Roles and Blurring
Boundaries: Reconstructing
Professional Identities in Higher
Education
Dr Celia Whitchurch
Lecturer in Higher Education
Institute of Education, University of London
c.whitchurch@ioe.ac.uk
Centre for Higher
Education Studies
Contexts I
• Study for LFHE on changing roles and
identities of professional staff
(www.lfhe.ac.uk/publications/research)
• Literature on academic identity
• Limited understandings about
professional staff identities…
• Focus on professional managers (as
opposed to academic managers)
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Contexts II
• Practitioner literature highlighted:
– ‘Professionalisation’ eg accreditation; CPD; code of
standards
– Increased specialisation to deal with eg legislative,
audit and market requirements
•Neglect of:
– Diversity and mobility of professional staff
– Blurring of organisational/functional/professional
boundaries
– Emergence of partnership working
• ‘Professionalisation’ process and greater fluidity
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happening
simultaneously
Conceptual framework
(identity)
•Conceptual framework of identity:
 A reflexive process or project requiring the
active participation of the individual
 The way that individuals position themselves in
relation to eg organisation charts/structures
 Interpretation of positioning in relation to others
•Therefore, an ongoing, open-ended process (rather
than fixed core/belonging), plus
•Possibility of multiple aspects or dimensions
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The study
•29 interviews in UK
•Three institutions (multi-faculty, green-field campus, post1992)
•Middle and senior career professionals:
– Generalists eg registry staff, departmental managers
– Specialists eg finance, human resources
– ‘Niche’ managers eg quality, widening participation,
research management
•Further interviews in Australia (one sandstone, one postmerger institution: 10 interviews) and US (two public
institutions: 15 interviews)
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Key findings I
•Professional identities more complex
than implied by eg job
descriptions/organisation charts
•People distinguish themselves by
the way that they operate around
organisational boundaries
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Identity ‘Dispositions’
Identity Dispositions
Characteristics
‘Bounded professionals’
(voluntary or involuntary)
Work within clear structural
boundaries (eg specialist function,
organisational location, job
description)
‘Cross-boundary professionals’
Actively use boundaries and crossboundary knowledge for strategic
advantage and institutional capacity
building
‘Unbounded professionals’
Lack of awareness of boundaries;
focus on broadly-based projects
across the university, and contribute to
institutional development
‘Blended professionals’
Dedicated appointments spanning
professional and academic domains;
likely to have mixed backgrounds and
academic credentials
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Typology of identities
Activity
dimensions
Spaces
Knowledges
Relationships
Legitimacies
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Characteristics
of Bounded
Professionals
Characteristics
of Crossboundary
Professionals
Characteristics
of Unbounded
Professionals
Characteristics
of Blended
Professionals
Key findings II
•Also found evidence that:
 The boundary between professional
and academic domains is becoming
increasingly blurred
 A ‘third space’ is emerging between
the two
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The Emergence of ‘Third
Space’
Professional Staff
Generalist
functions
(eg registry,
department/
school
management)
‘Perimeter’
roles eg
Outreach/study
skills
Specialist
functions
(eg finance,
human
resources)
Access/equity/
disability
‘Niche’ functions
(eg quality,
research
management
Community/
regional
partnership
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Examples of Institutional Projects
The Student Transitions
Project
eg Life and welfare
Widening participation
Employability and
careers
The Partnership Project
eg Regional/community
development
Regeneration
Business/technology
incubation
The Professional
Development Project
eg Academic practice
Professional practice
Project management
Leadership/management
development
Multi-functional teams
“The Higher Education
Professional”
‘Perimeter’
roles eg
Academic Staff
Pastoral
support
Teaching/
curriculum
development for
non-traditional
students
Links with local
education
providers
Teaching
Research
‘Third leg’ eg
public service,
enterprise
Implications of Third Space I
•Team working between:
– people of different levels of seniority
– different specialist and professional backgrounds
•Authority built on personal basis, rather than solely
via position in hierarchy or specialist knowledge:
– “There’s no authority that you come with”
– “It’s what you are, not what you represent”
– “If you solve a problem for us, we’ll come back and
work with you again”
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Implications of Third Space II
•Ambiguous working conditions
– “Sometimes an academic unit, sometimes an
office”
•Using this to advantage
•Developing appropriate language
•Assisted by eg:
– Availability of ‘safe space’ in which to experiment
– Support of senior figure or mentor (HOA, PVC)
– Acquisition of academic credentials (master’s,
doctorates)
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Implications of Third Space III
•Diffusion of ‘management’ and ‘leadership’
•No longer ‘done’ by one sub-set of people to
majority
•Likely to involve:
– Management/leadership skills at earlier stage of
people’s careers
– Bringing together local practice and formal
frameworks
– Being creative with existing mechanisms
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Challenges of Third Space
•For individuals:
–Status of boundary work?
–How to gain credit for third space activity in
appraisal/promotion processes?
–Risks in getting out of ‘mainstream’?
–Inappropriate reporting lines…
–Networking vs formal relationships eg
committee membership
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Challenges of Third Space
•For institutions:
–Sources of leverage can be diffuse
–How to prevent eg projects developing a
life of their own; or being too dependent on
one individual
–Encouraging creativity/innovation while
maintaining oversight…
–Lines of communication…
–Appropriate mix/balance of identities
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The future?
• Changing concepts of ‘professionalism’…?
• ‘Millennial' generation expect:
– Flexibility, creativity, lifestyles, locations
– Less elitism
– New locales for activity eg outreach
– Portfolio careers
– Networking
– Sharing of good practice…
•
A genuine ‘community of professionals’?
(See Richard Florida – The Rise of the Creative
Class, 2002)
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