Performance management change: discourses at play in an Italian university

Abstract

PurposeThis study explores the reactions of different categories of actors within a university setting (academics, administrative staff, governance members, and students) to implementing performance management system (PMS) changes. The paper aims to understand how these actors dealt with PMS change by discursively reconstructing their roles and positions at institutional and individual levels.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use Foucault's (1972/1989) conceptualisation of regimes of truths to analyse the case of an Italian university. Interviews with individual actors took place in the period 2012–2020. The data were contextualised with other data from publicly available reports, internal documents, and archival material.FindingsThe paper identifies the challenges actors face dealing with contrasting discourses and draws attention to the paradoxical changes triggering resistance. However, the findings show that when circumstances allow a generative resistance, dissent can be progressively replaced with a commitment on the part of actors, achieving alignment with organisational strategy.Originality/valueThe study challenges the commonly held view of resistance as a dysfunctional force that impedes change. It emphasises the importance of focusing on actors to make resistance a generative force shaping change towards more negotiated and agreed positions. This has implications for academics and practitioners seeking to implement PMSs.

Safeguarding the unknown: performance measurement, academic agency and the meaning of research quality in practice

“…This indicates that there are significant agentic possibilities to safeguard the many-sided, unpredictable and incommensurable nature of research quality in practice – if manager-academics are inclined to seize these opportunities in a decisive, long-term manner. These findings also suggest the potential for variation in academics' dealings with performance pressures – not only going from compliance to active resistance, but also including strategies where performance pressures are used as an activating discussion partner in pursuing generative and innovative forms for safeguarding the romantic aspects of research quality in practice (Soin and Huber, 2021; Manes-Rossi et al ., in press). These resisting and generative agentic approaches were found notably more in Case B than in Case A.…”

“…However, such compliance was not the only reaction; forms of resistance were found, too. Soin and Huber (2021) suggest compliance is not just non-agency but a social practice that goes beyond mere consent and find three variations of compliance, whilst Manes-Rossi et al . (in press) argue that resistance need not be only antagonistic, observing seeds of “generative resistance” in an Italian university.…”

“…This research typically depicts PMSs, rooted in “New Public Management” (NPM) (Hood, 1995), as hostile to academic freedom and detrimental to the overall creativity and quality of research. Even though resistance is often mentioned, academics are typically viewed as helpless and innocent victims (Thomas and Davies, 2005; Manes-Rossi et al ., in press). This antagonistic view is arguably too structuralist and pessimistic, which has been noted by a small, yet burgeoning area of research paying serious attention to the agency of academics themselves (Barry et al ., 2001; Anderson, 2008; Sousa et al ., 2010; Clarke and Knights, 2015; Englund and Gerdin, 2020; Soin and Huber, 2021; Manes-Rossi et al ., in press).…”

“…Even though resistance is often mentioned, academics are typically viewed as helpless and innocent victims (Thomas and Davies, 2005; Manes-Rossi et al ., in press). This antagonistic view is arguably too structuralist and pessimistic, which has been noted by a small, yet burgeoning area of research paying serious attention to the agency of academics themselves (Barry et al ., 2001; Anderson, 2008; Sousa et al ., 2010; Clarke and Knights, 2015; Englund and Gerdin, 2020; Soin and Huber, 2021; Manes-Rossi et al ., in press). Our exploration not only continues along these lines but importantly links it with the fundamental issue of how the meaning of research quality in practice is in danger in these circumstances.…”

Performance management and measurement impacts on universities: (re)viewing the past, present and future

“…This context raises the question of an appropriate set of measures, which has been the subject of several studies (Manes-Rossi et al. , 2022; Martin-Sardesai et al.…”