Professional and organizational commitment in universities: From judgmental to developmental performance management

Abstract

Adopting New Public Management in higher education implies a stronger reliance on performance management as an output control process. Performance management sets the tone in the university working context and seeks to increase the quality and quantity of scholars’ output. Focusing on quantitative outcomes, however, such performance measurement can lead to unintended behavior on the part of individual employed scholars. Drawing on qualitative case material, we demonstrate that performance measurement results in a loss of organizational commitment if it is perceived as judgmental. Scholars view themselves as being more committed to their disciplinary invisible college and thus to their profession. Our findings indicate that universities would do well to understand the impacts of professional commitment oriented towards invisible colleges on performance management. Thus, performance management should be enhanced as a developmental type so that professional and organizational commitment can be aligned. We outline its characteristics and how universities can strengthen it.