Does performatization foster intellectual stagnation?

Index

Abbreviations

1. Introduction

2. The emergence of performativity in academia

3. Consequences of academia's performativity
3.1 Limitation to research and its performance indicator of journal rankings
3.2 Positive consequences
3.3 Negative consequences
3.3.1 Careerism
3.3.2 Conformity
3.3.3 Gap spotting research and puzzle solving
3.3.4 Internationalization
3.3.5 Lacking practical linkage
3.3.6 Researcher identity
3.3.6 Readership
3.3.7 Power asymmetry
3.3.8 Summary and differentiation

4. Resistance and attempts of change
4.1 Rethinking
4.2 Institutional arrangements
4.3 Individual Actions

5. Discussion

6. Conclusion

References

Abbreviations

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1. Introduction

„While it may be reasonable to believe that a lack of institutional incentives is detrimental in terms of research productivity, a sophisticated and intrusive system of rewards and surveillance focused on performance measurement may stifle innovation [...]."

The above statement by Gendron (2008, p.120) raises the question: How much is too much? The present seminarthesis shall explain, in which status of performance thinking accompanied by rewards the higher education sector is situated and which implications follow out of this for research activities of universities in particular.

Concretely, the research question „Does performatization foster intellectual stagnation" shall be examined. Forthis purpose, a literature study has been operated, which encompasses inter alia renowned authors like Alvesson, Gendron, Hopwood, Humphrey, Parker and Sandberg.

The seminar thesis is set up as follows: It starts with a brief overview about the presence of performance thinking in academia and its emergence. Thereupon, the actual main part follows which deals with the examination of the consequences triggered by performativity. After limiting the thesis to the university's activity of research and more precisely to the performance indicator of journal rankings in particular, firstly positive consequences and subsequently negative consequences are examined. As a next step, change attempts and resistance against the performativity movement in general and against specific consequences out of it are introduced. In the final discussion chapter, the previous findings are illuminated from different angels and in this course also reflected and brought into wider context. The seminar thesis ends with a short summary of the outcomes and a personal notation of the author.

2. The emergence of performativity in academia

In order to be able to examine the research question „if performatization in higher education leads to intellectual stagnation" in detail, first of all an understanding of how performance thinking emerged in the academic field shall be provided.

According to Lyotard „[P]erformativity can be defined as a set of ideas and practices, which stress the search for technological optimality via the most efficient input / output ratio." (as cited in Gendron, 2008, p.99). A hint, that the idea of performativity found its way into the domain of academia early on, can be the Social Science Citation Index, which was already established in 1972 (Gendron, 2008).

Literature indicates, that around the turn of the millenium there was a substantive change, which massively intensified the performativity tendency already existing before (Gendron, 2015). Parker (2011) declares the outcome of this transformation as „university corporati[z]ation and commercialisation" (p.434) and ascribes the development to three underlying streams: For one thing, to New Public Management (NPM) associated with the increased dependence on private instead of public funding sources; secondly, to neo-institutionalism and the incorporated endeavour of organizations to seek for legitimacy in their environment in order to ensure viability; and in the third place, to the stream of neoliberalism, which says, that every individual is self-responsible for its own welfare.

The NPM movement originates from the idea, that the public sector works better, the closer it is to private entrepreneurial practice (Gendron, 2008). In case of universities this concretely means, that the government increasingly reduced its funding participation and that they are now reliant upon market generated revenues. For the purpose of surviving in the altered environment and being compliant with it, universities attempt to gain legitimacy. Therefore, they apply private sector corporate structures and managerial methods in education and research with the aim to merit funding and increase profit on the market (Parker, 2011). The rise of neoliberalism triggers values like individualism and self-sufficiency in the society (Parker, 2011), which goes along with a development towards substantive and procedural autonomy of previously public sector organizations like universities (Maassen, Gornitzka & Fumasoli, 2017). The above intensifies the entrepreneurial thinking of universities aimed at productivity, which was already induced by NPM and neo-institutionalism. The created ambiguity of universities of on the one hand having properties of a public organization and contributing to society and on the other hand seeking advancement in business aims with mainly private resources, makes them to hybrid organizations (Johanson & Vakkuri, 2018), whereby hybridity is defined by Johanson and Vakkuri (2018) as the „space between public and private" (p.4).

The new managerialism of universities is accompanied by a „key performance indicator (KPI) mentality" (Humphrey & Gendron, 2015, p.47), by which performance is measured along indicators of productivity. In this context, the university's image, inter-university rankings, benchmarking as well as measuring economic effects of research become more important. (Bruneau, 2000; Parker, 2011). Bruneau (2000), who depicts the commercial transformation of the higher education system from a Canadian perspective, compares the new links between universities' research and education to business with the ties of a captive on a shipwreck and considers the academic freedom as infringed.

The actual extent, to which market orientated management of universities and performance thinking have impact on academic activities, will be examined in the next chapter.

3. Consequences of academia's performativity

3.1 Limitation to research and its performance indicator of journal rankings

Out of the two areas of activity of universities-education and research -the present seminar thesis will focus solely on the latter, as the initial research question is concerned with knowledge production, which can only achieved by research.

Within the scope of NPM and the associated KPI mentality, also research performance is measured in order to make an individual reseacher's or an university's performance comparable to others. The benchmarking of academic productivity on individual level pays in to the particular researcher's career; on organizational level to the achievement of private funding and reputation. In doing so, different performance indicators can be adduced: grants achieved by particular article, number of publications overall, number of citations referring back to article, journal rankings, etc. (Gendron, 2008; Humphrey & Gendron, 2015).

Journal rankings differentiate journals with regards to the quality of articles published under the particular journal (Humphrey & Gendron, 2015). Thereby, „a hierarchical ordering of journals [is promoted], which is used to discriminate outlets and swiftly assess the significance of published articles" (Gendron, 2008, p.100). As there is always evaluation, interpretation and sense making connected to the above, it can be derived, that journal rankings are never neutral. Whereas questions pointing to the accountability of ranking organizations and the validity of differentiation criteria in use, may be justified, nevertheless journal ranking hierarchies determine what is accepted as legitimate knowledge and its progression. Out of this, the necessity for academic researchers emerged to publish in highly-esteemed journals (Humphrey & Gendron, 2015).

In the following, the example of the accounting discipline shall be adduced: Within this domain, knowledge produced especially in the North American and Anglo-Saxon context is regarded as legitimized, which leads to the phenomen, that highly-esteemed journal rankings predominantly address Western accounting topics, almost exclusively in English language. For instance, the journal of the French Finance Association followed this wave by now not publishing in their original language anymore, but solely in English in order to ensure international citations (Humphrey & Gendron, 2015). Rankings are versatile; which journals are esteemed as high at a specific point of time, is determined inter alia by the Financial Times ranking. This brings different journals in competition to each other (Gendron, 2015).

Although a main part of the reviewed literature for this seminar thesis relates to the accounting domain, the outcomes can be broadened to research academia overall as Foucault once stated: Jnstitutionalized logics and practices do not develop in a vacuum" (as cited in Gendron, 2008, p.98).

3.2 Positive consequences

As positive consequence of ranking journals one can see, that they can be used as target setting, which on one side can trigger and enhance a reseacher's motivation. Gendron (2015) for example depicts an university's incentive scheme, where the teaching load of a professor becomes lower once he achieves a specific amount of publications in highly-ranked journals. On the other side, it can remove or at least reduce a deans' bias in promoting. Whereas previous career advancement of an academic researcher was dependent on „professorial patronage" (Humphrey & Gendron, 2015, p.50), today the publishment of a certain amount of articles in high class journals is used as criterion for promotions.

Additionally, by the means of journal rankings it is now easier for outsiders of a research field to make quick and reasonable decisions. When estimating the quality of an article, a layperson can orientate himself at the ranking of the journal, in which the article is published. This applies also to the assessment of an individual's career advancement. Looking at the curriculum vitae (CV) of an academic person, which oftentimes includes achieved publications in different journals, gives a hint. (Gendron, 2015)

As journal rankings engender visibility and transparency regarding the achieved knowledge production, universities can use this also as basis for argumentation in negotiations for the provision of further fundings (Gendron, 2015).

Out of the fact, that in the frame of the preceding literature review, not more than the above positive arguments could be found, to which furthermore relatively little importance is attached by the authorship, a negative tendency out of the higher education sector's performativity can be derived. What negative consequences in detail are and if performance thinking leads to intellectual stagnation, will be demonstrated in the next chapter.

3.3 Negative consequences

As the term ^intellectual stagnation" has a negative undertone, the examination of the research question as well as of possible other negative implications shall be located under this chapter. Generally, stagnation means the stalemate in a development process and the point of being stuck in an established routine. Bringing stagnation in the context of intellectuality, a state is described, in which the comprehension ability stands still and doesn't develop any further (https://www.duden.de/).

By scanning the relevant literature, it rapidly becomes clear, that the main authorship basically supports the hypothesis, that „performatization" of the higher education sector leads to intellectual stagnation. Some consider this development furthermore as threat for the sustainment of the particular research disciplines, as less innovative knowledge is produced. But what characterizes innovative knowledge? According to Alvesson and Sandberg (2013), the key element of innovative research is the „challeng[ing] [of] an audience's taken-for-granted assumptions in some significant way" (cited in Alvesson & Sandberg, 2013, p.131), which in turn means that current research lacks exactly this questioning, challenging part. In this context, oftentimes also keywords like „careerism" (Hopwood, 2007, p.1372), „conformity" (Humphrey & Gendron, 2015, p.48), „internationalization" (Humphrey & Gendron, 2015, p.53), „power" (Gendron, 2015, p.174) appear in articles, which should be brought in interrelation in the following.

3.3.1 Careerism

Progession in the career path is linked to publication of articles. As already described, the university as employer can use this for rationalizing promotion decisions and for generating motivation. But looking at it from an employee's angle, this places enormous pressure on academic researches. In order to display their personal productivity, they are forced to produce articles in a „steady flow" (Humphrey & Gendron, 2015, p.48); otherwise their career advancement and also academic reputation is at risk. There is not only the demand of continuously publishing, but also to publish in highly-ranked journals. Gendron (2008) captions this phenomen as ^publish or perish mentality" (p.97), whereas Lyotard even considers the performance pressure as terror engendering (as cited in Gendron, 2008). To put it in other words, a researcher's performance is assessed by the amount of hits placed in high-esteemed journals instead of the quality of their work.

Which efforts need to be undertaken in order to be able to publish an article in a high-class journal? Gabriel (2010) describes this as „a long process, involving numerous revisions, citing authors one does not care for, engaging with arguments one is not interested in and seeking to satisfy different harsh masters, often with conflicting and incompatible demands, while staying within a strict word limit" (p.763). According to Alvesson & Sandberg (2013) this process often ends in dismissal due to the high competition for getting published. The rate, at which high-grade journals nowadays accept submitted manuscripts, is at 5 per cent.

3.3.2 Conformity

The paradoxon, that a significant higher number of articles published overall and high admission criteria to journals face a shortage in research innovation, can be explained by the conformity endeavour of journal editor organizations: As already brought up in chapter 3.1, journal rankings are not fixed, which means that journal editors have to constantly fight for a high ranking position. For the purpose of not being downgraded, editor organizations do not diverge too much from the typical kind of papers, they usually publish and of which the translation rate into citations is high (Gendron, 2015). As journals only accept articles, which confirm the statements of previously published articles under this journal, this leads to a high degree of homogeneity in specific journal domains and to a very narrow understanding of what is accepted as legitimized knowledge (Humphrey & Gendron, 2015).

3.3.3 Gap spotting research and puzzle solving

As a result, academics assimilated the research method called gap spotting research, by which identified gaps within existent literature shall be filled (cited in Alvesson & Sandberg, 2013). „ln gap-spotting, researchers refer positively or mildly critically to earlier studies with the purpose of extending this literature" (Sandberg & Alvesson, 2013, p.131). Neither is gap-spotting research only about finding gaps (it can adopt very complex forms), nor is the possibility of generating innovative research by this barred beforehand. But as questioning existing literature is widely avoided, this has the effect, that already influential theories are rather reinforced than challenged. (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2013).

Another method popular in the discipline of sociology, researcher pursue in order to be accepted as journal author and by this pushing the own academic career, is called puzzle solving (Burawoy, 2005, p.16). Hereby, academics pose research questions within an already defined, rather matured paradigm and all use the same methods, basic assumptions and language in order to solve the so far unresolved puzzle pieces. This process is also named as normal science - in contrast to revolutionary science, which would be the state, where basic assumptions are challenged and innovative knowledge is generated (Kuhn, 1970). Within the finance accounting discipline, Hermanson (2015) describes an excessive use of the archival research method aiming at top-tier journals. Thereby, other research methods, which could lead to diverge findings, are neglected. The phenomen of engaging in styles of research as favored by a set of highly ranked journals, Gendron (2015) labels as „paying-off mentality" (p.169), because it has a high materialistic short-term focus.

3.3.4 Internationalization

The fact, that journal research papers are formulated almost exclusively in English, leads to the issue of internationalization of research. How this has implications to the homogeneity of research and its associated lacking innovation potential, will be explained in the following: Hereby, linguistic barriers and the selection of research topics shall be discussed. Starting with the former, it can be said, that Janguage reflects a certain way of thinking and [therefor] representing reality" (cited in Humphrey & Gendron, 2015, p.53). When translating an article into English, the meaning of some words may be different and the aesthetic of the text may change. By this, the initial content respectively the represented reality may be altered to some degree. When a non-native speaking author decides to directly word his thoughts in English, this may lead to oversimplifications and omissions of sub-nuances in his arguments. As „skills at playing with words, concepts and metaphors play a key role in the emergence of new ideas" (Humphrey & Gendron, 2015, p.54), a non-native speakers' usage of the English language in expressing ideas may diminish their innovative capability (Humphrey & Gendron, 2015).

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