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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.

I provide an exploration and critique of reflexive research practice, which explores the nature of reflexivity, its relevance to and influence on accounting academic identity formation.

The paper gives detailed explanations of three different approaches to reflexivity dependent on perspectives on reality and exemplifies the chosen approach – intersubjective reflexivity. It draws from three personal experiences to illustrate intersubjective reflexive practice in action and its impact on academic identity, including my own identity as a feminist accounting academic. The examples involve the process of reflexively “being struck” regarding voice and representation; addressing power, privilege and decolonisation in knowledge production; and negotiating insider/outsider academic identities.

I reconceptualise and illustrate reflexivity as academic identity formation that enables transformative experience and more reflexive academic praxis within a turbulent academic context. Reflexive academic identity formation will resonate with accounting academics who are reflecting on the role and purpose of the accounting academy and their identity within it.

The paper provides a significant contribution into understanding intersubjective reflexivity, by reconceptualising intersubjective reflexivity beyond research and applying it to the identity formation of accounting academics. I identify the process of reflexive identity transformation through active engagement in identity work and emotion work, which transforms academic praxis. I argue for a broader more nuanced and power-laden perspective on reflexivity and academic praxis, which moves us to consider the responsibility of our academic identity and actions as accounting academics.

Transgender and gender diverse (TGD) individuals who choose to begin a gender affirmation journey often find the experience challenging. This can be a highly stigmatized process, and TGD consumers must strategically interact with brands and products to successfully construct authentic identities. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to obtain a better understanding of the TGD individual’s identity transformation within the consumption context.

Interviews were conducted with 27 TGD individuals about their gender affirmation journeys. The process of in vivo coding and thematic coding were applied for inductive analysis. Through subsequent analysis, parities with concepts from stigma management theory and Alvesson’s (2010) self-identity metaphors were identified.

The results of this study illustrated seven themes of TGD consumption patterns in relation to the gender affirmation journey. Awakening marks the watershed realization of a TGD identity, a cessation of some consumption habits and an emergence of new ones. Exhibiting is a form of information control and often transpired with new clothing purchases. Shifting one’s name and pronouns on identification documents is a means of covering. Remaking typically involves the procurement of medical services such as hormonal prescriptions and/or surgical procedures. Disclosing to individuals in one’s reference groups is a method of assessing (and maintaining) the wise, the curious and the oblivious. Rebelling against the stereotypes of masculinity and femininity in media portrayals and leisure activities is a technique to express one’s eccentricity and quirkiness. Finally, releasing describes the potentially waning TGD label and a somewhat stabilizing pattern of consumption. A model of TGD consumers is presented, and key assertions are discussed.

The variety and complexity of consumer purchases associated with gender affirmation journeys were investigated, and it was revealed that many of these consumption choices aided in the TGD individual’s stigma management as well. The key assertions presented here progress the literature on gender affirmation journeys by predicting patterns of consumption.

First-generation college students in the United States are a unique demographic that is often characterized by the institutions that serve them with a risk-laden and deficit-based model. However, our analysis of the transcripts of open-ended, semi-structured interviews with 22 “first-gen” respondents suggests they are actively deft, agentic, self-determining parties to processes of identity construction that are both externally imposed and potentially stigmatizing, as well as exemplars of survivance and determination. We deploy a grounded theory approach to an open-coding process, modeled after the extended case method, while viewing our data through a novel synthesis of the dual theoretical lenses of structural and radical/structural symbolic interactionism and intersectional/standpoint feminist traditions, in order to reveal the complex, unfolding, active strategies students used to make sense of their obstacles, successes, co-created identities, and distinctive institutional encounters. We find that contrary to the dictates of prevailing paradigms, identity-building among first-gens is an incremental and bidirectional process through which students actively perceive and engage existing power structures to persist and even thrive amid incredibly trying, challenging, distressing, and even traumatic circumstances. Our findings suggest that successful institutional interventional strategies designed to serve this functionally unique student population (and particularly those tailored to the COVID-moment) would do well to listen deeply to their voices, consider the secondary consequences of “protectionary” policies as potentially more harmful than helpful, and fundamentally, to reexamine the presumption that such students present just institutional risk and vulnerability, but also present a valuable addition to university environments, due to the unique perspective and broader scale of vision their experiences afford them.

The present research aims to explore the relationship between the university's new identity and its architectural design, and to investigate the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on this model. It also aims to analyze the declared identity of the new Egyptian universities.

To formulate the hypothesis of the relational model, the research started with the literature related to physical and nonphysical variables of university's identity (organizational and visual identity) and the impact of the pandemic on its identity. Secondly, an online questionnaire targeting academic leaders was conducted to identify the relative importance of the selected variables of university's identity pre- and post-pandemic. Thirdly, a content analysis of the new Egyptian universities' identity was used to track the correlation between the selected variables based on information accessible on universities' websites. Finally, the results of the content analysis and the questionnaire were compared to test the hypothesis.

The study reveals the most important physical variable of university's new identity pre- and post-pandemic is technological infrastructure and flexible design, while the least important is university's unique design. The results highlight that the universities need to revisit the declared identity to reflect the new challenges posed by COVID-19.

This study is considered one of the first researches that links the physical and nonphysical variables of university's new identity. The current study contributes to analyzing the impact of COVID-19 on university identity and architecture.

In this paper, I explore what shapes the identities of digital nomads (DNs), a class of remote workers who travel and work concurrently. Through extensive fieldwork and interviews with 50 digital nomads conducted in seven coworking hostels in Mexico in 2022, I construct a theory of DN identity. I base this upon the frequent transformations they undergo in their Circumstances, which regularly change their worker identity.

DNs relinquish traditional social determinants of identity, such as nationality and religion. They define their personal identities by their passions and interests, which are influenced by the people they meet. DNs exist in inherently transitive social spaces and, without rigid social roles to fulfil, they represent themselves authentically. They form close relationships with other long-term travellers to combat loneliness and homesickness. Digital nomads define their worker identities around their location independence. This study shows that DNs value their nomadic lifestyle above promotions and financial gain. They define themselves by productivity and professionalism to ensure the sustainability of their lifestyle. Furthermore, digital nomad coworking hubs serve focused, individual work, leaving workplace politics and strict ‘office image’ norms behind. Without fixed social and professional roles to play, digital nomads define themselves personally according to their ever-evolving passions and the sustainability of their nomadic life. Based on these findings, I present a cyclical framework for DN identity evolution which demonstrates how relational, logistical, and socio-personal flux evolves DN’s worker identities.

As emerging scholars of color with transnational backgrounds, we collectively recount our socialization experiences in US higher education institutes. We explore moments of betweenness as catalysts for envisioning a more inclusive academia that operates beyond the tokenism of diversity.

Employing betweener autoethnography (Diversi and Moreira, 2018), we inquire into the sense of impasse encountered by South Korean female emerging scholars in the field of education in becoming an outsider within the academic system.

Chronicling our shifts in perspectives of our positionality, we interweave inquiries motivating us to challenge normative pressures and map our betweener experiences onto the Wiedman and DeAngelo’s (2020) socialization model. Through this process, we wedge open in-between spaces in the socialization process that accommodate the nuanced positionality of transnational scholars.

Integrating postcolonial critiques on the Western-centric meritocratic academia, this piece sheds light on the complexity and fluidity of emerging transnational scholars’ socialization processes. The thick, nuanced description deepens the understanding of the complexity of their identity negotiation within the dominant logics of academia. Our inquiries interwoven through betweener autoethnography serve as guidance for mentoring international graduate students and transnational scholars.

Work-life flexibility policies (e.g., flextime, telework, part-time, right-to-disconnect, and leaves) are increasingly important to employers as productivity and well-being strategies. However, policies have not lived up to their potential. In this chapter, the authors argue for increased research attention to implementation and work-life intersectionality considerations influencing effectiveness. Drawing on a typology that conceptualizes flexibility policies as offering employees control across five dimensions of the work role boundary (temporal, spatial, size, permeability, and continuity), the authors develop a model identifying the multilevel moderators and mechanisms of boundary control shaping relationships between using flexibility and work and home performance. Next, the authors review this model with an intersectional lens. The authors direct scholars’ attention to growing workforce diversity and increased variation in flexibility policy experiences, particularly for individuals with higher work-life intersectionality, which is defined as having multiple intersecting identities (e.g., gender, caregiving, and race), that are stigmatized, and link to having less access to and/or benefits from societal resources to support managing the work-life interface in a social context. Such an intersectional focus would address the important need to shift work-life and flexibility research from variable to person-centered approaches. The authors identify six research considerations on work-life intersectionality in order to illuminate how traditionally assumed work-life relationships need to be revisited to address growing variation in: access, needs, and preferences for work-life flexibility; work and nonwork experiences; and benefits from using flexibility policies. The authors hope that this chapter will spur a conversation on how the work-life interface and flexibility policy processes and outcomes may increasingly differ for individuals with higher work-life intersectionality compared to those with lower work-life intersectionality in the context of organizational and social systems that may perpetuate growing work-life and job inequality.