Paul Cowley

UK universities have responded to government, employer and student demand for teaching and degree programmes which will improve academic and employability outcomes for learners. One of the tactics used in the UK higher education sector has been the recruitment of industry practitioners into universities. Whilst such appointments can provide the desired expertise and credibility for teaching programmes and departments, research suggests that such career changes can provide challenges for both the new academic and the employing institution.
The thesis aims to (1) investigate the development of the identity of early-career academics who embark on their new career in academia from well-established business professional environments. It also aims to explore (2) how professional practitioners from industry negotiate their expectations about their new roles and how they respond to perceived tensions and contradictions in formal institutional policies, structures, and procedures and in less formal collegial support environments. The research questions focused on identifying (1) what motivated the professional practitioners to join the academia; (2) how they perceived the transition to their newly developing/acquired identity and (3) how formal institutional procedures, policies, and structures, including (4) (less formal) communities of practice shaped, strengthened and/or hindered the process of this transition to a new professional identity formation of the early-career academics.
The research adopted a singular case study approach. It was conducted at a management school in a post’92 UK university with participants who were early-career lecturers with different levels of industry experience. To generate data, a multi-method research strategy was chosen, consisting of questionnaires (N = 8) and semi-structured interviews (N = 10). The research design is predominantly qualitative, based on an interpretivist research paradigm.
Activity Theory was used as a tool for understanding and interpreting the contextual and situational complexities, which new academics encounter in their new work context. Activity System was used as a critical site for observing the construction of cultural environments, which can facilitate norms, values and knowledge, which in turn influence the development and practice of those participating within the Activity System (Trowler and Knight, 2000).
Additionally, the study used Perry’s (2012) Auditioning Academic concept as a reference point for critical comparison with the new findings and for their refinement in relation to the professional transition of new academics entering higher education from industry.
The research identified key motivating factors that attract professionals to enter academia: the expectation of having a better and more satisfactory work-life balance; an opportunity to be stimulated and challenged intellectually in the subject they enjoyed; and finally, the expectation of exercising professional autonomy. The initial engagement and socialisation of the new academics within a clear departmental culture and stable working environment primarily served to shape the professional identity as that of a “teacher”, however; the professional identity of the new academics was perceived as a fluid one with the potential for change in the future. The research findings also point to the strong role of formal and informal institutional structures and communities of practice as playing a pivotal role in the development of new academics’ professional confidence and identity. Ultimately, the study offers new conceptual interpretations of existing theoretical work in the area of professional transition for new academics coming from industry.