Who is to blame? Evaluations in academia spreading through relationships among multiple actor types

Abstract

We draw on a general model of the governance of organizations to analyze the dynamics among various actor types given the present ubiquity of evaluations in and around universities. Regulators demand evaluations to assess the return on taxpayers’ money. Market actors, particularly publishers of academic journals, promote different metrics, including citation scores and impact factors. Scrutinizers, such as media companies, professions, auditors, and nongovernmental organizations, create further evaluations by developing university rankings, accounting systems, and investigative reports. There are also initiatives for evaluations inside universities: vice chancellors, department heads, and other academic leaders launch voluntary internal assessments, and researchers assist regulators, market actors, and scrutinizers throughout their evaluations. We conclude that multiple actors are responsible for the current evaluation regime in academia, and that none of them is responsible alone. Rather, it is in the dynamic relationships among actors at different levels that we find the strongest processes driving a seemingly ever-increasing number of evaluations in contemporary academia.