Desperately seeking fixedness: Practitioners’ accounts of ‘becoming doctoral researchers’

Abstract

We draw upon the concept of liminality to explore the experiences of practitioners enrolled on a UK Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) programme. We analyse twenty practitioners' reflective journals to detail how the DBA liminal space was negotiated. More specifically, we describe how practitioners deal with their struggles of identity incoherence or 'monsters of doubt' which are amplified in the DBA context owing to the complex nature of the separation phase of liminality. We identify three broad methods deployed in this endeavour: 'scaffolding'; 'putting the past to work' and 'bracketing'-which evidence practitioners 'desperately seeking fixedness'. We make three contributions -first, we provide empirical insights into the experiences of the increasingly significant, but still under researched, DBA student. Second, we develop our understandings of monsters of doubt through illustrating how these are negotiated for learning to progress. Finally, we contribute to wider discussions of 'becoming' to demonstrate the simultaneous and paradoxical importance of movement and fixedness in order to learn and become.

Continuity in the face of change: Identifying three strategies for constructing stable masculinity in liminality

“…From different theoretical perspectives, research on identity in liminal contexts has identified how people take different identity positions to create or maintain identity stability (Hay & Samra‐Fredericks, ; Ibarra & Obodaru, ). We argue that participants’ constructions of continuous selves serve as responses to unstable and sometimes identity‐threatening liminal contexts (Bamber et al ., ).…”

“…Much of the literature on liminal identity work is situated within organizational research such as human relations and management studies (e.g., Bamber, Allen‐Collinson, & McCormack, ; Daskalaki & Simosi, ; Hay & Samra‐Fredericks, ; Ibarra & Obodaru, ). This body of literature largely focuses on individuals whose career paths have been disrupted or renewed, and examines their identity work amidst or in the aftermath of these changes.…”

“…Results and methodologies vary widely between different studies, but some common themes are apparent. Some studies show that people in liminality voice an intense desire for both self and structural stability and ‘fixedness’ (Hay & Samra‐Fredericks, ). Others feel trapped in a transitory state by insurmountable structural barriers (Bamber et al ., ).…”

Threshold concept learning: Emotions and liminal space transitions

“…A nascent line of inquiry in management learning has begun to explore the experience of liminality inherent in how learners engage with threshold concepts (Hawkins & Edwards, 2015;Hay & Samra-Fredericks, 2016). Liminality is a concept from social anthropology that defines the temporal phase and social space in the middle of a ritual and involves a sense of being 'betwixt and between' (Turner, 1977;Van Gennep, 1960).…”

“…In the field of management learning, some scholars have focused attention on threshold concepts and the modalities they create for teaching and learning in domains like leadership practice (Yip & Raelin, 2012), introductory management (Wright & Gilmore, 2012), and business ethics (Hibbert & Cunliffe, 2015). Other scholars have elaborated threshold concepts through their situatedness within a liminal process in which learners progress through an in-between state of doubt and uncertainty to a new transformed understanding (Hawkins & Edwards, 2015;Hay & Samra-Fredericks, 2016).…”