Performance management in the Australian higher education system – A historically informed critique

Abstract

This article aims to provide a historical perspective of neoliberalism and new public management practices in the Australian higher education system from the early 1980s to contemporary times. Drawing on historical and contemporary data sets and research articles, it evaluates historical changes in control systems and metrics applied to university teaching and research. From an audit culture framework, it examines the emerging rationales driving financially focused university governance. Organisational and individual audits of performance have become standard practice, couched in the conventional language of transparency, performance and accountability. Accounting-based performance measurement, control and audit are found to dominate university operations, fostering mass delivery of education, research outputs and knowledge commercialisation. Neoliberal performance management is shown to have dramatically altered accounting models and changed internal power relations, transforming university identities and roles into a commercialised corporate model pursuing a self-interested financial bottom line aided by a private sector performance control orientation.