TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING: COPING WITH SOCIAL VALUE DISSONANCE IN ACADEMIC LEADERSHIP

The way we think about who we are as professionals and what practices are consistent with our values, beliefs, and expectations as professionals inspire the actions and decisions that we undertake in the workplace (Pratt et al., 2006; Nelson and Irwin, 2013). Although professional identity is largely developed through the socialization process that accompanies a newcomer throughout her first work experiences, changes in professional identity and related adjustment of practices can unfold in light of institutional pressures or technological shifts (Chreim et al, 2007; Nelson and Irwin, 2013). Research has delved into the potential conflicts that professional identity as a reference for behaviors may stir, such as those that emerge between individuals holding different professional views within an organizational setting when decisions have to be taken or those that are perceived by individuals when making sense of the relationship between their personal and social identities (Pratt and Rafaeli, 1996; Ashorth et al., 2008). Surprisingly, the perspective that contrast may be inherent in the very nature of professional identity, and not lie only at the boundaries between different identities, has been overlooked so far. Discrepancies may reside in the values and beliefs that constitute professional identity, particularly when they are endorsed as a consequence of institutional change. This study aims to further our understanding of how individuals elaborate and handle professional identity changes, and how they interpret and react against dissonance in its attributes, thus contributing to studies on social identities. We investigate how Italian academics have interpreted the effects of the Gelmini reform on their profession, whether and how they have experienced any contrast in professional identity values as a consequence of its introduction, and how they have addressed discrepancies through reflection and practice. The study presents a grounded model that accounts for how individuals cope with discrepancies in professional identity change and for the individual and organizational factors that affect change processes.