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The importance of information systems (IS) professions is increasing. As personality–job fit theory claims, employees must have suitable personality traits for particular IS professions. However, candidates can try to fake-good on personality tests towards the desired personality type. Thus, the purpose of this study is to identify archetypal IS professions, their associated personality types and examine the reliability of the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality test in IS recruitment decisions.

The authors reviewed academic literature related to IS professions to identify job archetypes and personality traits for IS professions. Then, the authors conducted an experiment with 452 participants to investigate whether candidates can fake-good on personality tests when being tested for a particular IS profession.

The identified job archetypes were IS project manager, IS marketing specialist, IS consultant, IS security specialist, data scientist and business process analyst. The experimental results show that the participants were not able to fake-good considerably regarding their personality traits for a particular archetype.

The taxonomy of IS professions should be validated further. The experiment was executed in an educational organisation and not in a real-life environment. Actual work performance was not measured.

This study enables a better identification of suitable candidates for a particular IS profession. Personality tests are good indicators of the candidate's true personality type but must be properly interpreted.

This study enhances the existing body of knowledge on IS professions' archetypes, proposes suitable MBTI personality types for each profession and provides experimental support for the appropriateness of using personality tests to identify potentially suitable candidates.

This chapter presents results from the ‘How I Became a Research Manager and Administrator’ (HIBARMA) section of the 2022 Research Administration as a Profession (RAAAP-3) global survey of Research Managers and Administrators (RMAs). Here we focus on routes into the profession, the skills that were useful in gaining that first RMA role and the career satisfaction of individuals. In addition, we look at some of the qualitative feedback from the survey questions to present an overall picture of the variety of backgrounds and routes that can lead people to the field of RMA. Finally, illustrative vignettes highlight the diversity of routes into the profession and some common themes attracting professionals to ‘the best job of all’ (Andreson, 2016) – Research Management and Administration.

This chapter explores the results of an international survey (RAAAP-2) to provide global insight into research management and administration (RMA) as a relatively new field of investigation within the area of higher education management (HEM). Building on that extensive survey, the purpose of this chapter is to investigate qualitatively how and why people become and remain research managers and administrators, focussing primarily on their skills, roles, and career paths.

Findings from the analysis confirm that a career in RMA is rarely an intentional choice and can be described as labyrinthine, which could be even compared and contrasted with a concertine academic career described by Whitchurch et al. (2021). While conclusions confirm the gender implications of the profession, which is overall highly ‘female’; further conclusion sheds light on RMAs across regions and suggests how this varied ecosystem could even undermine the recognition of RMA as a profession.

This chapter examines various definitions and perceptions of Research Management and Administration (RMA) from individuals both from within and outside the profession to gain a wider understanding of this field. These definitions and perceptions are expected to trigger reflections on where the boundaries of the profession are more likely to be.

To do so, the authors utilise a mixed method that begins with a discussion of different definitions of RMA. Next, we move from conceptualisation to action and engage the reader by presenting empirical insights from an analysis of specific training programmes within RMA, shedding light on the profession’s distinctive features from an insider’s perspective. Lastly, we delve into the case study of the project foRMAtion, a training program that introduces RMAs as the ‘Professionals at the Interface of Science.’ This case study allows us to explore how individuals outside the RMA profession, such as teachers and students participating in its training courses, perceive and understand RMA.

Previous research has pointed to a lack of studies concerning supervision training courses. Consequently, the literature has little to suggest, and the research field is underexplored, so questions around the content and design of supervision training courses remain unanswered and need to be addressed systematically. The main aim of the present study is to explore and map whether shared content and design exist in supervisor training courses across different vocations.

A syllabus analysis is used in order to investigate characteristic features in supervisor training courses related to the professions of dentist, doctor, psychologist, police officer and teacher.

The results point to the existence of shared content in the different courses, such as an emphasis on learning and supervision theories, feedback, ethics, assessment and communication. Furthermore, the results conclude similarities in design of the courses, such as a problem-based approach, seminars, lectures and homework. Thus, there are common theoretical approaches to important supervisory competences.

Our results intend to offer possibilities to learn from different professions when improving supervisor training courses but may also constitute a starting point for developing a shared model of interprofessional supervisor competences. Furthermore, the results may support possible cooperation in interprofessional courses. This could include arranging interprofessional courses, where one part is shared for participants from the included professions and another part is profession-specific.

We seek to contribute to the research field of supervision at workplaces with knowledge and ideas about how to learn from different professions when developing and improving supervisor training courses.

The purpose of this paper is to explore whether official inquiries are an effective method for holding the medical profession to account for failings in the quality and safety of care.

Through a review of the theoretical literature on professions and documentary analysis of key public inquiry documents and reports in the UK National Health Service (NHS) the authors examine how the misconduct of doctors can be understood using the metaphor of professional wrongdoing as a product of bad apples, bad barrels or bad cellars.

The wrongdoing literature tends to present an uncritical assumption of increasing sophistication in analysis, as the focus moves from bad apples (individuals) to bad barrels (organisations) and more latterly to bad cellars (the wider system). This evolution in thinking about wrongdoing is also visible in public inquiries, as analysis and recommendations increasingly tend to emphasise cultural and systematic issues. Yet, while organisational and systemic factors are undoubtedly important, there is a need to keep in sight the role of individuals, for two key reasons. First, there is growing evidence that a small number of doctors may be disproportionately responsible for large numbers of complaints and concerns. Second, there is a risk that the role of individual professionals in drawing attention to wrongdoing is being neglected.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge this is the first theoretical and empirical study specifically exploring the role of NHS inquiries in holding the medical profession to account for failings in professional practice.

This paper aims to review the research on accounting professionalisation in China to develop insights into how the research is developing, offer a critique of the research to date and outline future research directions and opportunities.

This paper adopts a methodological approach of systematic literature review, as suggested by Tranfield et al. (2003) and Denyer and Tranfield (2009), to identify, select and analyse the extant literature on the Chinese public accounting profession. In total, 68 academic works were included in the review process.

This paper finds that the extant literature has produced fruitful insights into the processes and underlying motivation of accounting professionalisation in China, demonstrating that the Chinese experience has differed, to a large extent, from the hitherto mainly Anglo-American-dominated understandings of accounting professionalisation. However, due to the lack of common theoretical vernacular and an agreed upon focus, the extant literature illustrates a fragmented and contradictory picture, making attempts to accumulate prior knowledge in the field increasingly difficult.

This paper focusses only on research published in English. Consequently, the scope of review has been limited as some works published in languages other than English may be excluded.

This paper provides one of the pioneering exercises to systematically review the research on accounting professionalisation in China. It explores significant issues arising from the analysis and provides several suggestions for furthering the research effort in this field.

This chapter addresses the profession of research management and administration (RMA) in Portugal. It starts with a brief outline of the national research and innovation (R&I) ecosystem that contextualises the development of the profession. The RMA community is characterised and the expectations for the future of the RMA profession are summarised using data collected through a national online survey. It is posited that RMA in Portugal is an emergent career having developed key traits of a profession, namely common interests and practices, a concern with deepening specialised knowledge and skills, the existence of an organised network of practitioners, the offer of academic qualifications and training in the area, and the integration in international RMA communities of practice. Nevertheless, future developments in the European Research Area (ERA) are identified as a critical milestone that will influence the development and formal legislative institutionalisation of the RMA profession in Portugal.

This chapter delves into the evolving identity of professionals within the field of research management and administration (RMA), examining the shifts in their roles and expectations in the changing landscape in higher education. After the introductory section, Section 2 offers a conceptual framework that emphasises identity as a dynamic process rather than a static concept. This framework sheds light on the changing roles and expectations that define the RMA profession. In Section 3, we explore the contextual backdrop of shifting expectations surrounding RMA roles while stressing the importance of recognizing the multiplicity of identities to comprehend the nuances of the RMA profession. Section 4 analyzes empirical data and explore the diverse pathways that lead individuals into the RMA profession. We uncover that a notable proportion of RMAs possess scientific training and research experience and highlight the complexities surrounding the identity of RMAs with doctoral training (DRMAs). Lastly, Section 5 discusses key observations that yield valuable insights for future research on the evolving professional identity of RMAs. We emphasise that, through self-exploration and introspection, practitioners in the field can contribute to a deeper understanding of their roles and actively shape their professional identity.

The research management and administrator (RMA) profession in the Western Balkans (WB) has not yet been investigated. In this chapter, we provide a first insight into the current state of the profession, its evolution and existing network of peers within the region and between the region and Europe at large. We focus on the RMAs’ opinions about the policy level, on the institutional background and on networking initiatives that allow for the understanding of further development of the profession. Based on the findings of a focus group and a survey with the region’s RMAs, we provide insight into the challenges and opportunities as perceived by the RMAs themselves.