Role transition of higher education teachers due to disruptive technological change: Identity reconstruction for a better teacher-student relationship

This paper highlights the importance of higher education teachers’ professional identity in the field of management, especially when faced with crisis events or disruptive technology. By employing the Bridges transition framework, we comprehended the profound transformation brought about by the pandemic and suggested proactive measures to effectively address future obstacles that significantly affect teaching methods. Based on a PLS-SEM analysis performed to examine the outcomes of an online survey (N = 145), our study provides insights into the connections between changes in the teachers' identity, digital mastery, successful role transition, and the teacher-student relationship. Our results show that the loss of teaching identity has a direct negative impact on the digital mastery, the success of the transition of the teaching role, and the student-teacher relationship as well. We suggest that a transition process is successful if it is well-managed and supported during its psychological phases, places significant emphasis on the phenomenon of loss of identity and provides guidance towards defining the new identity.