Motivated by growing trends to require doctoral students to be supervised by panels rather than single supervisors, our study investigates how these resulting structural changes affect students' and supervisors' agency and the co-construction of their identity. Using role theory as a framework to analyze the narratives of a matched sample of students and supervisors, findings reveal the effect of socially enacted roles on members' engagement, with purposed conformance evident in their goal-directed agency. Besides the pivotal role of primary supervisors in ensuring a common purpose to achieve timely completion of the required research, findings demonstrate the importance of developing members' shared understanding of the adjustments to structure and agency required to achieve diversity and excellence.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	narratives; role theory, conformance, agency, structure, doctoral supervision
Research Division:	Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services
Research Group:	Accounting, auditing and accountability
Research Field:	Accounting, auditing and accountability not elsewhere classified
Objective Division:	Education and Training
Objective Group:	Learner and learning
Objective Field:	Higher education
UTAS Author:	Khosa, A (Dr Amrinder Khosa)
ID Code:	150774
Year Published:	2022
Web of Science® Times Cited:	1
Deposited By:	Accounting
Deposited On:	2022-06-29
Last Modified:	2022-09-15
Downloads:	0