The Concertina Career
A new book, Challenging Approaches to Academic Career-Making, authored by Dr Celia Whitchurch, Professor William Locke and Dr Giulio Marini, is planned for publication by Bloomsbury in 2023. This builds on their latest paper which develops the concept of the “concertina” career to demonstrate ways in which, in the same way as the musical instrument expands and contracts in music-making, the process of career-making expands and contracts in relation to the different spaces that individuals find themselves in over extended time periods (Whitchurch, Locke and Marini 2021). Thus the spatial and temporal parameters of careers are being stretched to accommodate, for example, new forms of work around disciplinary activity, professional allegiances, career moves in and out of higher education, and personal interests, reflecting the lived experience of individuals. As part of this process of career-making, the interplay between individual and institution becomes multifaceted, at the same time creating elasticity within formal career structures. In turn, this paper had extended the concept of the itinerant academic (Whitchurch 2018), whereby individuals stretch the parameters within which they work, including experience outside higher education, thereby constructing new forms of professional capital. The empirical data informing all these publications has suggested a greater fluidity in working environments, so that those formally categorised as academic, as well as professional staff, may undertake activity in what Whitchurch has termed “third space” (Whitchurch 2013). They also show how, as more fluid identities are created, roles and careers are being reshaped in ways that connect the university with a broadening range of constituencies.
The forthcoming book is the result of a two-year Economic and Social Research Council, Office for Students, and Research England-funded study entitled The Future Higher Education Workforce in Locally and Globally Engaged Higher Education Institutions, undertaken within the UK Centre for Global Higher Education (CGHE). Interviews were undertaken with staff on academic and professional contracts across the four geographical regions of the UK. In the first round of interviews (autumn 2017 to spring 2018), in each of eight case study institutions, six individuals undertaking academic work were interviewed (one offered seven), including one individual with a teaching-only contract, one with a research-only contract, one with a learning support remit, and at least one with a traditional teaching and research remit. Included in these were some individuals who were employed on professional services contracts and yet undertook teaching- or research-oriented roles, for example, supporting student learning or applications for research funding. Furthermore, some teaching-only staff undertook research, and some research-only staff undertook teaching. A total of 20 out of 49 interviewees had worked outside higher education at some time during their working lives, in other sectors, or currently had dual roles (for example in the health professions, law or media sectors). 39 of the original 49 interviewees agreed to be re-interviewed between autumn 2019 and spring 2020 to give a sense of career directions. The fluidity identified in individual roles and career tracks suggests that both academic and professional staff may work in “third space” (Whitchurch 2013), either temporarily or permanently.
The text explores ways in which contemporary staff, across an increasingly diverse workforce, are making their careers by negotiating institutional processes and structures in ways that move beyond the duality of boundaried (with an emphasis on structures) and boundaryless (with an emphasis on agency) careers. It draws on the notion of career scripts to show how the career paths of individuals are informed by personal strengths, interests and commitments (represented by Internal scripts), and by activity associated with professional practice (represented by Practice scripts), as well as by formal career structures (represented by Institutional scripts). Internal and Practice scripts have in turn led to new forms of activity, within both formal and informal institutional economies, which are used as a metaphorical framework in relation to the production, exchange and consumption of academic or associated activity. Whereas the formal economy is represented by, for example, promotion criteria and career pathways, the informal economy is represented by personal initiatives, together with professional relationships and networks that may be unique to the individual. It is shown how, by drawing on Internal and Practice scripts, individuals not only develop concertina-like careers, stretching the spaces and timescales available to them, but also address misalignments and disjunctures that they may encounter within the formal economy. Thus, individuals not only interact with institutional structures, but also incorporate new forms of activity, influenced by personal and professional activities and relationships, thereby creating and working in different forms of third space.
Finally, the book reviews pointers for the future, highlighting a collective momentum towards more fluid approaches to roles and careers, which are likely to be influenced by an expanding hinterland for individuals, opening up academic and associated activity to wider purposes, and at the same time expanding professional selfhood. It is suggested that faith in formal institutional economies, including for example, contracts of employment, promotion and progression criteria, and professional development processes is likely to decline unless institutions begin to recognise the need for change. In turn, a new psychological contract between universities and their staff may be required in order to realign formal processes with the lived reality of roles and careers in the 21st century.
A further publication by Whitchurch (2023 forthcoming), a chapter in a Research Handbook on Academic Labour Markets to be published by Edward Elgar, will focus more specifically on developments in third space activity across the range of academic and professional staff over the last decade.
References
Whitchurch, C. (2013). Reconstructing Identities in Higher Education: The Rise of Third Space Professionals. New York: Routledge.
Whitchurch, C. (2018). “From a diversifying workforce to the rise of the itinerant academic”. Higher Education 77(4): 679-694.
Whitchurch, C., W. Locke and G. Marini (2021). “Challenging Career Models in Higher Education: The Influence of Internal Career Scripts and the Rise of the ‘Concertina’ Career”. Higher Education 82(3): 635-650.
Whitchurch, C., W. Locke and G. Marini (2023 forthcoming). Challenging Approaches to Academic Career-making. London: Bloomsbury.
Whitchurch, C. (2023 forthcoming). Third space revisited: Developments in the concept of third space working for academic and professional staff. In Research Handbook on Academic Labour Markets. Ed. G. Strachan. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
