PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT SYSTEMS IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Objectives: International rankings, national rankings, intra-university rankings, infra-departmental rankings are performed constantly. At present, performance management in higher education is undoubtedly one of the main concerns of most universities. At international level performance management as part of quality assurance and assessment programmes has proved to be a stressful system for teachers and has created a culture of mediocrity. The goal of this article is to underline the need for an alternative paradigm for performance management in higher education, more independent, customer centred and human oriented. Prior work: Performance measurement used in higher education is considered in comparison with performance measurement used in business organisations. Performance management in higher education institutions has its roots in business performance management. The stressful key-performance-indicators system borrowed from business, very often built according to some "prestigious" external rankings, has caused the advanced countries to rethink the scope of their higher education system. Approach, results and implications: For identifying the main differences between business and higher education performance measurement systems literature review is used. The need for a new paradigm regarding performance measurement and management within higher education institutions is identified considering the pitfalls which the advanced countries have already met while implementing business-like performance management systems. This article is a manifest for thinking and rethinking how performance management is done. Several conclusions are revealed: the interest in meeting external conditions imposed by international rankings prevails over internal improvement interest; output results interest prevails over process key performance indicators measurement; the focus on result indicators (task orientation) is rather a stressful factor for teachers and generates demotivation. Value: this paper underlines the need for changing the focus from international rankings to customer needs, from output to process, from process to human resources in building performance management and measurement systems within HEIs.