Management educators’ identity play

Kars-Unluoglu, S. and Guneri Cangarli, B. and Turner, A. and Kempster, S. and Trehan, K. (2026) Management educators’ identity play. Management Learning. ISSN 1350-5076

Abstract

This article critically examines how management educators navigate the certainty–emergence paradox through identity play in their work. Drawing on a 14-month collaborative autoethnographic study, we show how educators experiment with provisional selves to work through classroom tensions. Our analysis reveals that identity play enables educators to experiment with a spectrum of identities to traverse paradoxes without seeking closure in classroom practice. We surface the individual, institutional, and relational conditions that shape identity play. With this, we contribute to management learning and education literature by showing how identity play offers moments of agency and creativity in navigating paradoxes. We problematise this process by foregrounding the institutional insecurities, hegemonic logics, and subtle coercions that constrain the scope for genuine autonomy. Identity play emerges here not as a simple solution, but as a precarious, emotionally charged act of resistance – an ongoing negotiation with paradoxes that can expose educators to vulnerability and self-doubt. We redefine identity play as a fragile, contingent practice that enables situated agency rather than complete emancipation. We invite further inquiry into how identity play can be cultivated as a critical strategy for addressing institutional paradoxes in various educational and organisational settings.