For academics who work within higher education, the difficulties in finding the space and time to learn, to reflect and to self-evaluate have increased due to multiple expectations and demands of an increasingly competitive business environment. This substantive theory of ‘Perpetual Identity Constructing’ proposes that when academics are presented with an opportunity to enhance their development, they experience a 3-stage process that facilitates their constructing a preferred sense of their academic identity. This theory of managing a predisposed identity, deconstructing and then reconstructing a preferred academic identity demonstrates the critical importance of institutional support for providing academics with needed space and time to realise their full potential.