In order to pursue ‘business-like’ efficiency, and in keeping with ‘neoliberal-rationality’, a growing number of universities around the world have come to favour adopting PMSs (performance measurement systems) to evaluate their and their staff’s performance. This thesis is aimed at investigating how senior managers in higher education institutions implement various PMSs and how faculty members understand and feel about these PMSs. This thesis argues that PMSs are not just simple accounting technologies, but tools for management teams to use to manage and control people through the exercising of power. To complete this research, a qualitative research design and a case study were used due to the nature of this research and my interpretivist stance. A total of 35 semi-structured interviews were conducted, with interviewees from different departments with various backgrounds and job positions in a British university.
Lukes’ (2005) three dimensions of power as the lead theoretical framework was applied to analyse the power relations. Development for International Development’s (2009) political economy analysis and Cooper and Sherer’s (1984) political economy of accounting were used to identify senior managers’ real interests. Alvesson and Spicer’s (2012) functional stupidity was adopted to further explain a general status of academia in the UK.
It concludes that PMSs used by the senior managers in the case university did not create positive feelings according to the majority of faculty members. However, the PMS systems did impact on staff and they did serve to reinforce the values of senior management. The PMSs serve as a kind of media through which the senior managers can visibly and invisibly manifest different dimensions of power, and the most insidious and strongest power enables the powerful to alter the management culture. The senior managers’ political and economic interests largely determine how they utilise PMSs. The dominant contribution of the thesis is its application of the Lukes’ theoretical framework, aligned to a political economy approach to understanding the impact of PMSs in the case university. It is hoped that this thesis constructs a strong empirical foundation for future research and future researchers can be inspired by this work.
| Date of Award | 3 Oct 2019 |
|---|
| Original language | English |
|---|
| Awarding Institution | - University Of Strathclyde
|
|---|
| Supervisor | Andrea Coulson (Supervisor) & Christine Cooper (Supervisor) |
|---|