Since Knights and Clarke’s (2014) seminal paper on insecure academic identities, the Higher Education sector has become even more turbulent, with Times Higher Education labelling 2024 an ‘annus horribilis’ for the UK. This raises significant academic identity tensions, faced through both the escalation of existing challenges, such as job insecurity, work intensification, performance measurement and multiple stakeholder expectations, and new threats such as the emergence of Generative AI.
Through this webinar we highlight and explore some specific identity tensions facing academics in contemporary HE, and also ways in which we might better manage such tensions, both for ourselves and as members and colleagues of academic communities and institutions.
The webinar will firstly briefly review and conceptually map the identity field in relation to identity tensions, which will serve as a touch point for subsequent conversations. Second, short presentations will be offered from speakers drawing on their own teaching and research on three specific issues for academic identities: the emergence of AI, and its implications for the academic as both teacher and researcher; academic and professional identities for professional qualifications; and the academics as educational innovators.
Finally, there will be an open panel discussion on specific strategies and practices that might better support us and our colleagues to recognize, reflect on, navigate and negotiate tensions in our own academic identities and on continuing to find professional meaning and value within HE and Business and Management Education.
Provider Information
This event is organised by the BAM Identity SIG, in collaboration with members from the BAM Organisational Psychology SIG and the BAM Management Knowledge and Education Sub Committee.
Who Should Attend?
The event speaks Sections A1, A2, A3, D1, D2, D3, E1, E2, E3, as detailed in the BAM Framework.
Speakers
Dr Ali Rostron
Dr Ali Rostron's research is informed by her previous work experience as a manager, including exploring implications of an identity perspective for areas of organisational and management practice such as manager education and development. She is increasingly interested in autoethnography as a way of connecting management experience with management theory and so-called best practices. Ali is less interested in what managers “should” do, and more in what managers actually do, and why. She especially enjoy teaching and working with professional managers and sharing their journeys of discovering how academic theories and practices can work for them.
Ali is a member of the British Academy of Management and is on the organising committee of the BAM Identity Special Interest Group (SIG) and is also a \Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Dr Sarah Crozier
Dr Sarah Crozier is a reader (associate professor) and chartered psychologist. Before joining MMU in 2010 she was employed as a psychologist at the Health and Safety Laboratory, the research arm of the HSE. In her practitioner career, she led and worked across a range of applied research and consultancy projects on wellbeing and stress at work.
Her research and teaching interests span a number of work streams concerned with optimising decent work and strengthening employee health and well-being. They specifically involve exploring EDI and stress, emotions and well-being in alternative types of employment; understanding identity challenges and well-being impacts; examining the management of mental health at work; and evaluating experiences of good employment.
She is co-chair of the BAM Organizational Psychology special interest group and is a consulting editor on the editorial board of the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology.
Dr Emma Thirkell
Dr. Emma Thirkell is a Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management at Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University.
With over 14 years of experience, she is recognised for her leadership in innovative pedagogies and experiential learning, particularly through the use of escape rooms to enhance student engagement and critical thinking.
A Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Emma regularly shares her expertise in pedagogical innovation at international conferences, bridging the gap between academia and practice.
Dr Anindita Banerjee
Dr Anindita Banerjee is a Lecturer in the Work, Organisation and Management subject group at Liverpool University Management School.
Her research interests include understanding issues and challenges around organisation of work arising from power, control and social dimensions of technology and information systems. She is keen on understanding organisation of work from perspectives of gender, race, and caste.
Her research has been informed by her interests in Archival Research Methods using a postcolonial lens. She is also increasingly interested in research around generative AI and its impact on Management Education.
Chaired by
Dr Lara Carminati
Dr Lara Carminati is an Assistant Professor Organisational Behaviour and Change Management, at the University of Twente, the Netherlands.
Her research lies in the field of identity and includes the relationships between identity and disruptive technologies such as AI, the values and emotions underpinning professionals' identities, the antecedents and consequences of identity work and conflict, as well as the micro and macro processes surrounding identity dynamics.
Her work has been published in different journals, among which Applied Psychology, Production, Planning & Control, Frontiers in Psychology, Current Psychology, Ethics & Behavior, and Healthcare Management Review.
Benefits of attending
- Opportunity to critically reflect on your own academic identity and the identity tensions pertaining to your own current and/or desired role.
- Develop understanding of the nature of an academic identity, and how this understanding may inform our experience and meaning-making of academic work and practice.
- Critically examine some particular identity challenges for academics and explore possible strategies for managing identity tensions.
- Engage in productive conversation with speakers and other participants from a breadth of disciplines.
Contact
Please contact the BAM Office at [email protected] with any queries.
Event Fee
BAM Member: Free
BAM Non-Member: £30
If you are booking multiple paid events as a Non-Member, it may be cheaper for you to purchase a BAM Membership as nearly all BAM Events are free or at a discounted rate for Members.
For more information, please visit BAM Membership
Registration closes on 11th March 2025 at 23:59 GMT
Payment and Cancellation Policy
Payment for the event must be received before the start date of the event concerned. Access will not be permitted to the event if full payment has not been received.
Cancellations
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Cancellations received within 14 days of booking your place on the event will receive a full refund.
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Cancellations received after the 14-day cancellation period and later than 14 days before the start date of the event will not be eligible for a refund.
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Although we endeavour to run all events as advertised, BAM reserves the right to cancel any event if, for example, there are not enough people to justify running the event or if other significant unforeseen circumstances arise.
To cancel a booking a cancellation request must be submitted via your BAM Account, to do this:
- Go to your BAM Account
- Click 'My Events'
- Under 'Upcoming Events' will be the booking, please click Cancel Booking
- Follow the steps and complete the request