Dr Kumaran Rajaram Publishes Paper on Management Educators in Generative AI-Augmented Learning Environments

CRADLE Fellow Dr Kumaran Rajaram's paper, titled "Reconstructing Professional Identity: Management Educators in Generative AI-Augmented Learning Environments," was recently published in the Journal of Management Education. 

Rather than asking whether Gen AI will replace aspects of the management educator’s role, his paper asks a more consequential question: How must management educators redefine their professional identity to remain pedagogically distinctive, ethically grounded, and meaningfully human in an AI-augmented business school?

As Gen AI becomes increasingly capable of explaining concepts, generating cases, providing feedback, and supporting learning, the defining question for management education is no longer “How should educators use AI?” but “What is an educator for when AI can perform many of the tasks that once defined educational expertise?”

Drawing on Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and Dialogical Self Theory (DST), Dr Rajaram's paper positions Gen AI as a catalyst for professional identity transformation, disrupting educators’ experiences of autonomy, competence, relatedness, and established role identities. He conceptualises the emergence of the hybrid educator—one who moves beyond being primarily a transmitter of expertise to become an AI orchestrator, critical sense-maker, ethical steward, learning designer, mentor, and developer of human judgement. This transformation generates profound tensions between expertise and AI capability, agency and technological dependence, innovation and integrity, and efficiency and meaningful human connection. Dr Rajaram therefore argues that the central challenge of Gen AI is not technological adoption but professional reinvention: redefining the distinctive human contribution of management educators in an increasingly AI-mediated learning environment. Faculty development must consequently move beyond teaching educators how to use AI toward enabling them to critically reconsider who they are, what they uniquely contribute, and who they need to become.

Citation:
Rajaram, K. (2026). Reconstructing Professional Identity: Management Educators in Generative AI-Augmented Learning Environments. Journal of Management Education, 0(0).

DOI: 10.1177/10525629261483734