Expanding institutional analysis: helping professionals and the reconstruction of academic individuals

This article examines the institutional making of the academic individual amid the ongoing transformation of higher education and universities. By integrating three established foci of institutional analysis—organizational structures, societal discourses, and professional practices—we move beyond conventional approaches that typically consider these dimensions in isolation. Central to our study is the role of new helping professionals—such as grant specialists, career mentors, and emotional support specialists—whose purported task is to empower individuals within organizations, fostering personal development and, in turn, enhancing organizational performance. On the one hand, this new occupational group supports academics in meeting expanded responsibilities; on the other hand, through their professional practices, they simultaneously raise expectations placed on academics and, against this backdrop, identify deficits that are to be overcome. By adopting the threefold approach of institutional theory, we highlight the implications for what it means to be an academic individual and consider the potential consequences for science as a meritocratic system.