Social role and professional and managerial competences of higher education professor: similarities between the constructs and research perspectives

Abstract This essay aims to discuss conceptual similarities between the constructs “social role”, “professional competences” and “managerial competences” of higher education professor. The notion of social role has been used recurrently and spontaneously by members of the organizations in their descriptions about their practices and experiences. It is argued that the social roles that professors of higher education plays (teacher, researcher, manager, counselor, etc.) are guided in specific professional competences that can be effective, or not, depending on their environment and context of performance. To achieve this purpose, for selecting the bibliographic material, it was adopted the thematic criteria for choosing intentionally texts that would enable deeper understanding of the constructs social role and professional and managerial competences, using themes and key concepts from authors such as Kerr (1982), Berger e Luckmann (2005), Goffman (2009), Mendonça et al. (2012), Musselin (2011, 2013), Paiva (2007), among others. It sought to shed light on the faces of the social role of academic manager and expand the discussion of these constructs in an environment with rather peculiar actors and dynamics, such as a higher education institution. Finally, other research perspectives that consider methodological aspects and thematic connections were suggested.