A Dynamic Viewpoint to Design Performance Management Systems in Academic Institutions: Theory and Practice

Abstract

This article illustrates how to design and apply Performance Management systems in academic institutions by identifying and modeling those factors affecting academic performance through a dynamic performance management view. Particularly, combining performance management with System Dynamics modeling may allow academic decision-makers to better identify key performance drivers for pursuing a sustainable performance improvement in universities. In the second section of the article, a number of examples based on empirical findings from a field project aimed at designing a dynamic performance management model for the University of Palermo (Italy) are discussed.

Keywords:

• academic institutions
• performance management systems
• dynamic performance management view
• system dynamics modeling
• field project

Notes

¹ Law 537/1993; Law 244/2007; Law 133/2008; Law 240/2010.

² Loose students’ evaluation schemes are mechanisms or exam evaluation processes adopted by professors. They tend to make it easier for students (with little preparation) to pass the exams, even though the students should be more prepared. On the one hand, such mechanisms allow the university to get more public funds, but on the other hand, they may dangerously damage the educational quality of a given university and, consequently, its image.

³ Other examples of ministerial indicators are the following: the number of graduates with regular curricular length; the amount of funding from external financing bodies; the average number of fellowships per doctorate program; the proportion of fellowships externally funded for doctorate programs; the ratio between the number of working graduates one year following their degree achievement and that of graduates in the same year; the number of credits earned during nonacademic activities; the percentage of foreign students enrolled in degree courses; and the percentage of foreign students enrolled in doctorate programs.

⁴ For instance, focusing efforts on the search for high-volume and value funding of research projects from external institutions in the short -term—regardless the strategic relevance for future research of the findings emerging from such projects—could jeopardize the allocation of resources to more long-term innovative projects.

⁵ It is worth remarking that, when referring to academic services, “product” may imply a result generated by the fulfillment of a process or a combination of processes, in favour of a given “client”. By “client” we mean, instead, an entity (either an individual, or group of people, or a front/back-office organizational unit, or other institutions) that benefits from a given “product” delivered by administrative processes.

⁶ For instance, the issue of an identification code and its related certificate; the issue of a certificate of enrollment to a new academic year or of the approved syllabus; the transcript of records; the provision of internships.

⁷ A top-down approach contrasts with a bottom-up approach which, starting from analytical elements, moves toward synthesis. The latter emphasizes the use of statistical methods designed to collect data and information which, starting from the analysis of different organizational units’ performance, are meant to reach an overall measurement system capable of expressing the university global performance. Nevertheless, such data acquisition would lead to a random collection of information characterized by a lack of both selectivity and systemic perspective on performance achievement processes. Consequently, such an approach may limit academic decision-makers in steering universities according to a sustainable development perspective.

⁸ Performance drivers are different from performance indexes. Performance indexes are synthetic measures of the quality or state of the system and do not affect performance. Implying that an improvement in such indexes generates an improvement in other variables underlies inverting between causes with effects.

⁹ Neely, Gregory, and Platts (1995) argue that benchmarking is used as a means of identifying improvement opportunities as well as monitoring the performance of competitors. They also cite Camp (1989) as having the most comprehensive description of benchmarking: benchmarking as the search for organization best practices that lead to superior performance. In terms of performance management, however, Neely et al. cite Oge and Dickinson (1992), who suggest that organizations should adopt closed-loop performance management systems which combine periodic benchmarking with ongoing monitoring. As a result, closed-loop performance management systems are able not only to provide the measure related to the performance of each organizational unit, but also to explain how their distinctive performance contributes to the overall academic result.

¹⁰ The research quality may be measured by comparing actual and planned research findings, or by the ratio between UNIPA’s and competitor universities’ high-ranking publications.

¹¹ An in-depth overview of System Dynamics methodology can be found in Forrester (1961) and Sterman (2000).