The Construction of Professional Identity: A Process of Becoming Dr. Jane Lung

Introduction The construction of a professional identity and its development are individual maturation processes; It begins when one enters training for the profession as a novice, and these processes evolve through the developmental stages until finally one perceives ones professional identity.

Professional Socialization During professional socialization and development, one internalizes certain knowledge, skills, attitudes, new values and other attributes. These varied experiences that individuals encounter in their professional lives may, in turn, form the basis for the professional identity construction. However, the process of becoming is often taken for granted.

Aims Thus, this paper aims to explore some of the possible processes of internalizing the professional identity during BBA (Bachelor of Business Administration) education. It hopes to provide fresh insights by using a multi-perspective approach to investigate both the BBA teachers and students perceptions of specific demands in the Business disciplines.

Professional Training: Early Stage These perceptions are important and must be considered in order to gain a better understanding of how professional identity is negotiated through professional encounters and exchanges. It occurs even at an early stage of the professional training.

Focus Group Interviews Focus group interviews were conducted and analyzed. The results showed that different disciplines have different orientations towards learning and creating knowledge.

Accounting Do a lot of calculations… …In Accounting… calculation is the big part…

Economics … Economics … we use more graphs to do the analyses and to determine the results… In Economics … we need to draw a lot of graphs and diagrams …

Law …the Law…we need to apply ordinances … refer to rules … …legal concepts are important… …knowledge about the law is also important … for example … rules, facts, material facts…

Management …. Management … focuses on the management of people in a company … … Management is similar to Marketing; we have to apply theories to real-life situations …

Marketing … Marketing requires greater creativity … to create advertisements and stories for presentations … … Marketing focuses more on creativity and practicing … we gain experience from doing projects …

Conclusion Students experience in creating knowledge reveals the specific knowledge and demands of their disciplines, which in turn, has a powerful impact on the creating and developing of their professional identities. For instance, when constructing a piece of discourse, –Accounting mainly bases on monetary terms; –Economics mainly theories; –Law mainly precedents or statutes.

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