Given growing concerns that sharp declines in university funding, the quest for global rankings and neo-liberal policies have intensified academics’ institutional accountabilities for performance, our study investigates accounting academics’ agency in responding to this environment. Drawing on interview data, and framed by role theory, we seek to understand how the complexities of role performance for teaching, research, and service affect academics agency and identity. Our findings show clarity amongst accounting academics’ regarding their expected roles in the institutional structure, and that they exercise caution and conform to structural accountabilities, internalising any role conflict. Accordingly, academics are constructing their role identity by accepting constraints upon their agency, obligations, authority, and autonomy. In this context, accountingisation structures appear value-adding at the institutional (macro) level, but are more value-subverting at the micro-level of performance. These findings contribute to role theory by showing the need to consider the importance of academics’ role agency for understanding relational identity in terms