Professional identity and professional services staff: understanding and impact

ABSTRACT This article explores the findings from my professional doctorate that focused on professional services staff in a university in the North West of England and their perceptions of identity. With little literature surrounding the identity of professional services staff, this paper asks if professional services staff relationships with academic staff impact their professional identity and how they perceive their identity at work. It concludes with a view that professional identity is not a well-known concept amongst the interviewees but interactions with academic staff, job roles and recognition of their work are important in how they view themselves and their identity.


Introduction
In 2019, I published a paper in this journal in which I discussed completing the first two years of a professional doctorate (EdD) (Caldwell 2019). This subsequent paper explores the findings on one area of my thesis, how professional services staff perceive their professional identity and if their relationship with academic staff had an impact on their identity. I conclude with reflections on my research journey.
In this article, where I discuss central professional services, this relates to departments such as marketing or finance. School-based professional services are those staff who work in schools directly with academic staff and students.
Rationale for undertaking a professional doctorate I began my career in higher education as a temporary member of professional services staff seventeen years ago after working for two years in further education. Over this time, I have worked at two universities in several different roles, within school, faculty, and central professional services.
I was drawn to undertaking the EdD programme initially as I wanted to continue my education following on from my MA and MBA. The first assignment of the programme focused on professionalism. I explored my own professionalism and reflected on how I felt I was seen by my peers. Undertaking this research and being forced to look at myself within my professional context was eye-opening. During the taught element of the programme my supervisor noted my writing had a cathartic element to it. I was writing about how I saw myself as always less than academic staff, there to serve and assist them.
Each assignment in the taught phase brought me closer to understanding how working with academics positioned me within the sphere of influence of the school, or how I positioned myself.
Throughout my career, I have often felt not as respected or afforded the same credibility as my academic colleagues. When working in my first role within higher education, I worked in central professional services and had little or no contact with academics. This feeling of otherness became more obvious when I moved to my current institution and began working alongside academic staff from lecturers to heads of faculties. There could be many reasons why I feel this way. Being surrounded by several staff who I felt looked down on administrative colleagues and who at times were outright rude to them, began to impact my identity as a professional within higher education.
As a result, my thesis became very personal for me and during the writing period, it became quite emotive at times. Opening up and acknowledging feelings publicly can be quite exposing. I am uncomfortable with being so open with my feelings in a professional context. I have always attempted to keep my professional life separate from my emotions and writing about a desire for credibility is not something I am used to doing; however, it is important to be able to articulate how the ideas for the doctorate began.
As my identity has evolved during my time working in higher education, I wanted to understand if other professional services staff felt the same. This paper focuses on identity and the findings from my thesis.

Identity
Identity is a complex topic. Hall (1996, 4) writes 'identities are constructed within, and not outside, discourse, we need to understand them as produced in historical and institutional sites within specific discursive formations and practices'.
There has been much written about academic identity within the world of higher education (Henkel 2005(Henkel , 2010Winter 2009;Billot 2010;Trede, Macklin, and Bridges 2012;White et al. 2014;Feather 2015) but it is only over the past few years that more research has been produced about professional services identity within the sector (Whitchurch 2006(Whitchurch , 2008aWhitchurch and Gordon 2010;Lewis 2014;Linquist 2018;Akerman 2020). Whitchurch is one of the most prolific researchers on the identities and changing roles of professional services within higher education (Whitchurch 2004(Whitchurch , 2006(Whitchurch , 2007(Whitchurch , 2008a(Whitchurch , 2008b(Whitchurch , 2009a(Whitchurch , 2010a(Whitchurch , 2010b(Whitchurch , 2012(Whitchurch , 2018. Over the past fifteen years there has been a shift from looking at the work that professional services staff undertake and how it serves academics and the institution, to how professional services themselves are becoming a more clearly defined workforce and are also moving from specific and defined roles to more blended professionals. Botterill (2018, 91) writes 'staff span organisational boundaries and work in blended capacities'. Brown, Bossu, and Denman (2018) add to this argument by describing the various roles that professional services now undertake, including IT, academic support and student recruitment and marketing. Within my current institution, some roles have elements of all these areas.
Professional services staff are now expected to work across different areas. Jones (2018, 231) argues that 'what has been created is a complexity of parallel lines of authority (for academic and administrative and professional staff) with little change in position'. The changes in higher education over the past thirty years have led to an identity crisis for many of the professionals who work in the sector (Henkel 2010). The traditional academic identities are breaking down as academic boundaries are dissolving and restructures and respacing of staff takes place (Henkel 2010). Whitchurch (2008bWhitchurch ( , 2009bWhitchurch ( , 2012 argues that new spaces and professional boundaries are being created, which are changing the nature of existing staff roles, to create blended professionals who merge the traditional academic and professional services roles. While academic staff have a loyalty and identity around their subject area, professional services staff identities are related to their specific roles, such as student administration, HR or finance, many of which have their own professional body, creating a sense of cohesion (Whitchurch 2010b). The additional identification for staff also centres around their location within the university. Whitchurch (2006) argues central services staff have more affinity with the university and see themselves as professional administrators, while school staff see themselves as academic administration.
Given the literature around the identity of professional services staff (Whitchurch 2006(Whitchurch , 2007(Whitchurch , 2012Henkel 2010;Szekeres 2011;Hobson et al. 2018) it is surprising there has not been more research into how the working relationship between academic staff and professional services can impact this identity. Mcinnis (1998) noted that there has been little systematic research into university professional services staff. While Mcinnis' paper was published over twenty years ago, the increase has not been on the scale of research into academic identity. The early work focusing on professional identities began in the mid-2000s and focused on professionalising administrators through development and skills (Whitchurch 2017). Clance and Imes (1978, 241) describe imposter syndrome as 'an internal experience of intellectual phoniness'. The imposter phenomenon often appears as 'a strong belief that they are not intelligent; in fact they are convinced that they have fooled anyone who thinks otherwise' (Clance and Imes 1978, 241). The concept of imposter syndrome is prevalent within higher education and professional services staff can be more affected by this due to the idea that administration is generalised and can be given to anyone (Parkman 2016). This feeling of being replaceable (although not the only manifestation of imposter syndrome) is discomforting and as many higher education institutions are in flux, it can be difficult to picture a long-term career and create a professional identity within the sector. There is little research into imposter syndrome specifically within higher education (Parkman 2016;Akerman 2020) but what is available suggests both academics and professional services staff can suffer from feelings of unworthiness and invisibility.

Methods
I undertook semi-structured interviews with five professional services staff members (see Table 1). All the interviewees worked within an academic school within a university in the North West of England and were in different roles across the school. I used convenience sampling to access participants (Wragg 2002;Cohen, Manion, and Morrison 2011). I interviewed staff within the school that I work in, although not directly with. Interviews were transcribed manually and thematically analysed using Clarke's (2006, 2019) reflexive approach. I was aware of the interpretation with which I analysed each interview. The subject positionality is important in terms of the balance of language and power (Fairclough 2001). Fairclough (2001) highlights Foucault's work on socially constructed discourse which links into the figured world theory of positionality, that we are both the author and product of our words. Halliday (2002, 51) states 'meaning cannot be reported in a way that is independent of the observer because she or he has to understand what is being said and this implicates them in the subject of their research'. By acknowledging my choices and being aware of potential bias, I was limiting the impact this may have had on the research. I was conscious of being an insider researcher. The participants could perceive my research as already biased due to the fact I am a member of professional services and am undertaking interviews around the professional identity of professional services staff. Gibb's (2008) discusses reactivity and the influence the researcher, a question or even body language could have on a participant. He goes on to argue that participants may respond to questions 'based on how they want to see themselves' (Gibb 2008, 695). In the case of this research, it could also be that participants answered questions based on how they wanted to be perceived by someone they work alongside.
By speaking to all participants about my research (within reason, to not influence outcomes), the reason for interviewing and asking them to read the participant information and complete the consent form, I hoped this established from the beginning a sense of a researcher/participant dynamic. There were no overt concerns from any of the interviewees regarding my previous position or my current role within the school.
Limitations I am aware that having five professional services staff participants is a small-scale study. The EdD was a case study based within an academic school of a university. By undertaking interviews with five professional services members of staff I was able to fully explore their understanding of professional identity as a concept and their perceptions of their own identity.
The use of a case study was based on focusing my research within a school within a particular institution. While all higher education institutions are structured slightly differently, they encompass schools, departments, or faculties in which academics teach, and professional services undertake the administration. There is also an element of centralised professional services administration. I would like to assume the findings of this research might offer insights to the situation across the sector. Yin (2018) argues case studies are useful when trying to understand a social phenomenon, why such a phenomenon exists, and are used extensively in educational research. Writing on research methodology examines how case studies can be undertaken to explore contested and complex areas of social phenomena even though the research may be situated in a wider social context (Stake 2000;Yin 2018). Given that I wanted to focus on understanding and exploring experiences and interactions, rather than measuring or quantifying them, case studies are a tool that allow open questions and the chance to gather rich data to gain an in-depth understanding within a limited context (Stake 2000;Bassey 2002;Yin 2018).
There are limitations to case study research as there are with all forms of research. While there are questions raised over the ability to generalise from a case study (Cohen, Manion, and Morrison 2011;Bryman 2016), Yin (2018) states that although it is not simple, the case study should be replicable and the findings may be used, in the same way that experiments are, to lead to the generalisation of theory. I feel making a generalisation based on the outcome of one case study with limited participants could be questionable. However, higher education has many similar traits, and case study research could lead, in this context, to the broadening of a general theory or to offer others involved in this field insights into the phenomenon under scrutiny.

Professional services identity
There was a mixed reaction from professional services staff around professional identity, how professional services describe their professional identity and the extent to which their relationship with academics impacts it. From the interviews with professional services participants there was a sense of ambivalence regarding their professional identity. It is not something they have thought about and it took some prompting to try to get them to think about how they would define it and what it meant to them: Oh gosh, I haven't really given it a lot of thought, I come into work and I provide … I don't really have an identity as such.
One participant defined her identity in terms of how she felt she had performed in her role; it links to the value of her work: I think, I feel good at the end of the day if I feel like I have done something that is worthwhile, so I feel like I have got quite a lot done in one day. I feel good that I have come in and made a difference in that day especially if I have helped somebody or if somebody is stuck or lost, I can direct them. Obviously, every day isn't like that, some days you'll go home and think I've done absolutely nothing today and feel rubbish.
The invisibility of professional services staff can link to this perceived lack of value, their work is not seen as important as that of academic staff. Szekeres (2011, 684) writes 'they still find themselves treated as the poor relations of the university system, representing an underclass in terms of pay, conditions and flexibility'. Simpson andFitzgerald (2014, 1929) add to this by arguing 'the work of professional staff is frequently labelled as "non-academic" and not immediately seen as contributing to the core tasks and activities of the university'. Being helpful and feeling valued is important to the participant's identity but it feels like she needs that work to be acknowledged. It is important to her that she can make a difference in her role.
The only technician in the professional services group sees his identity within the third space, an area that overlaps both academic and administrative worlds, which is somewhere he is comfortable inhabiting: I definitely enjoy being a bit of each to be honest I've always been a finger in every pie sort of person. I like having involvement in lots of different research projects, I like being involved in the student's education so yeah, I probably do identify as somewhere in the middle between professional services and academic staff at the moment. Akerman (2020) argues the third space is not recognised within the sector by those who do not inhabit it, leading to institutional blindness. I further would argue it is not always recognised by those who inhabit it. On the few occasions, I mentioned the third space concept to the professional services participants, this concept was unknown to them although it did resonate with the technician, mainly because he could see himself straddling both worlds. The difficulty faced by the technician is the pull of administrative line management with day-to-day tasks being given by academic staff and all related to student learning or research. He has created a space for self-authoring his own sphere by being able to straddle both a professional services and academic role, albeit under a professional services contract. This appears to give him job satisfaction and a varied experience.

Just an administrator
Being seen as 'just' an administrator plays a part in professional services staff being able to define their identity: I think it is obviously quite hard to think we are just administrators which I think is the general perception of people but obviously there is quite a lot involved in the job role … I do see us as very important to the university and the way that programmes run. If we weren't here, I think they would be very stuck.
This interviewee appears to be frustrated at how her role is perceived. This can lead to a negative identity and a justification for the role she undertakes. Each time a professional services interviewee used the term 'just an administrator', I challenged them on it and asked why they used the word 'just' to describe themselves and what they do: I mean I guess there is the aspect of are … there is the aspect of you know, what is your role within the department, are you contributing?
When people say what do you do? I, in fact I bumped into someone the other day and they were sort of asking what do you do, 'are you a teacher' and I went 'no, I do admin in the office' and that's it, it's that just an admin thing isn't it, it's just admin, no I am not an academic.
When questioned on the use of the word 'just' one participant stated it related to an incident with an academic staff member: We had a meeting once years ago with, I can't remember who said it but one of the senior academic management team referred to us in a meeting as just admin so it's like a joke, but it's not is it.
The idea that some academic staff use the term 'just' to describe the role of professional services in front of those professional services staff has had an impact on the terminology used by the respondent. While she appears to see it as a joke on the surface, it has had an impact as she recognises it is not a laughing matter for her role to be reduced to 'just'. By minimising the role that professional services undertake, academics can be seen as having an impact on how professional services staff perceive their role and their identity. It can also relate to how professional services staff feel their role is perceived: I think it is obviously quite hard to sort of think we are just administrators which I think is the general perception of people but obviously there is quite a lot involved in the job role. I asked the participant to elaborate on this as earlier in the interview, she mentioned seeing herself as an important part of the university, and using the term 'just' does not give this impression: I think that is probably the way some people kind of make you feel sometimes or sometimes if you have not had a particularly great week you kind of feel like that. I think I feel like that sometimes when I am sort of, like you said, explain what I do to people, it's quite hard and in the end, I just end up saying 'oh it's just administration' cause it's easier … but then I also do think we are obviously needed cause there are so many of us across the university doing what we need to do to keep it going. The reason that I want to do this qualification is so I can do something more and progress more, so I feel better when I come home at the end of the day like I have actually done something and sort of made a difference while I have been at work.
There is clearly a tension and frustration about how professional services staff are perceived by others, although not just academic staff. They feel their roles are viewed as unimportant and insignificant, but both also realise their roles are required within the university. The idea of 'othering' professional services by the term 'non-academic' and 'just' indicates a perceived power imbalance created by intellectual capital (Bourdieu 1984;Moore 2014;Rowlands 2018). Allen-Collinson (2006, 272) writes; 'This default or negative definition, that is defining persons by what they are not, was felt to denigrate and deny research administrators' specialist skills and subject expertise and to result in a lack of respect for their abilities'. The idea that their identity is less than an academics by default of their position within the university and the role they undertake is disheartening, particularly when professional services staff can be as qualified as academic staff. Bourdieu (1984, 74) describes those with education/intellectual capital as having easier entry into the (figured) world of society, 'the possessors of strong education capital who have also inherited strong cultural capital, and so enjoy a dual title to cultural nobility'. The same can also be said for academia.
Despite some of the negative comments articulated, when questioned about how their relationships with academic staff impacted their identity, there does not appear to be a straightforward answer to this.

Academic relationships and identity
Part of the reason for undertaking this doctorate was to understand to what extent professional services staff felt their relationships with academic staff impacted their professional identity, if at all. I thought perhaps, due to my own relationships and professional identity, that their identity would be more tied up with the academic relationship. It does not appear to be as important as I see it in myself and my working relationships or in the limited literature on this subject. Despite the responses from the professional services staff in the previous section about how they felt when dealing with academic staff, their identity is not as closely linked to that relationship as I had imagined. The response I received was quite mixed in terms of the impact of the relationship: Individual interactions, not really that much because I have been here longer than most of them and done this longer than most of them I would say they do quite a lot for me because I spend a lot of my time around academic staff, you know certainly, the work that I am doing is very much on their terms, it's not going down to professional services and working for them it's working for the academics. At the same time, they don't treat me like I am working for them, I'm working with them, so they promote a very collegiate view of everything. That's not to say I don't see myself as a technician when I'm working with them, I do. I'd say they push the more academic side of the identity and I see it more as helping to provide a service as well so I've got that part of me that says 'yes I'm working with them' but at the same time I need to make sure this service is doing what it should be as well.
Like me, the relationship with academics is more important to this respondent as someone who works closely with them. He stresses that although he is a member of professional services, the academic staff do not treat him as someone different to themselves. He is part of the team and they push the academic side of him. It appears he is able to mediate his identity across the boundaries of his role. He benefits from academic expertise as they in turn benefit from his skills and experience.
My interest in professional identity arose through feelings of being an imposter. If I am feeling like this, are others? However, it does not seem like all professional services are. I don't think the academics staff shape my identity, I think the nature of the role sort of does because as I say it has changed … it's much more customerfocused, keeping students happy, it's all about keeping the students happy, keeping them here so the nature of the role has changed so in a way I am losing the bits I like and the bits I don't like I am having to do more of but that is the university's changing requirements really changes the role not my relationship with the academics.
Changes to current job requirements can cause staff to question their role and autonomy within their sphere of influence (Lewis 2014). Lewis (2014) also argues that professional services staff who have a deep understanding of academic work feel more confident in engaging with academics as equals and have a stronger professional identity. This is not something that has been evident in my research. All the professional services staff I interviewed appeared to have no doubt around their capabilities within their role, nor a lack of understanding around the academic requirements.

Discussion
Being valued and having their role recognised is important for the professional services staff I spoke to and to a lesser extent their relationship with academics plays a part in this. However, it appears to be individualistic and role dependent. This is at odds with my initial thoughts going into this research as I had assumed, like me, academic relationships would have more of an impact on their identity than it appears to.
Individual interactions with academics can influence how professional services staff feel about their role and identity, however these appear to be one off occurrences. This echoes Allen-Collinson's (2009, 946) research, which found individual interactions with academic staff can cause tension, 'interviewees stressed the context-dependency of exclusionary practices in that by no means all academics engaged in such treatment, and even those who sometimes did at times would be more inclusive'. This individual relationship can impact how professional services see their role and the value placed on it by academic staff.
Professional identity is a term that is not always clear to professional services and is not as important to professional services within this case study as I perceived it to be. It relates to the work they undertake and the relationships they have with individual academics around them. Being valued and getting recognition for the work they do may improve the selfperception of professional services.
The agency which gives professional services staff their identity is based on their socially constructed figured world, (Holland et al. 1998) where the spheres of academic and professional services bump along next to each other but do not seem to merge together. Their role in working with (for) academic staff has some impact on the identity of professional services staff. Individual interactions, both positive and negative, contribute to their individual and collective identities alongside the institutional structures and demands the university places upon them. Henkel (2010, 10) argues higher education is in flux with restructures which create new spaces for working: As staff in higher education, whatever their formal designation, find themselves moving between different working spaces, tasks, roles, and reference groups, it is more plausible that they will construct and reconstruct how they define their identities over time, and perhaps simultaneously.
The identities of professional services staff will adapt and change as their working sphere does. It is becoming clear how important the work they undertake is to professional services staff. It also appears that how this work is perceived by academic staff may impact on how professional services staff view their own professional identity. There appears to be a clear need for more research into this area on how to improve perceptions of identity.

Conclusion
I have attempted in this paper to illustrate one of the findings from the research I undertook as part of the EdD, how professional services view their identity and if this links to their relationships with academics. As mentioned, I had assumed there would be a stronger link due to the way I view my identity and how I perceive my relationships with academic staff. However, it appears that job roles, recognition of their work and individual interactions with academic staff all play a part in how professional services staff perceive their professional identity.
This research journey began five years ago, when I started the EdD. Being asked to consider and focus on my own professionalism in the first assignment made me think about my own identity and how I position myself at work as a professional services manager with multiple competing challenges. This research journey has been an attempt to understand how and why I feel like this but also if other professional services within the school also had these feelings.
I do not see myself graduating from this doctorate programme and shedding myself of all the feelings of being on the outside of academia. The next steps in my career are yet to be determined. I enjoy my current role in research management and having a doctorate will give me the credibility I desire. Regardless of the path I decide to take, the experience and development from this EdD has given me confidence in my abilities and to be less concerned with how I see myself compared to others, as everyone has their own insecurities. I can honestly say it was worth it and would encourage anyone thinking of undertaking a professional doctorate to do so.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor
Joanne Caldwell is Co-Deputy Editor for Perspectives and is the Centre for Doctoral Training Manager at the University of Salford. She has just recently been awarded her EdD with a thesis focusing on professional services staff identity and their relationships with academic staff.