Andrew Graham

This small-scale case study focused on academic managers to explore the ways in which they control the workload of academic staff and the extent to which they use the workload model in performance management of academic staff. The linkages that exist between the workload and performance management were explored to confirm or refute the conceptual dichotomy, identified from the literature, exist in practice. A conceptualisation derived from neoliberal ideology is described which uses new public management (NPM) as the anchor for the study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the three academic managers in each of the faculties and the transcripts analysed. The analysis of the responses confirmed that workload and performance management are not linked at the operational level, confirming the dichotomy in practice. Further research is suggested that would focus on the perceptions of academic staff directly affected by the workload and performance management processes.

Higher education in the United Kingdom (UK) is under increasing pressure to manage the workload of its academic staff in a way that maximises the outputs from teaching and research. The emergence of this can be traced back to 1989 through government legislation that introduced neo-liberal managerialism into the sector mirroring the laissez-faire approach to the economy that was prevalent. This paper examines the literature surrounding workload management and staff performance in the sector to try to establish whether the two have been conceptually linked. A desk-based narrative literature review was executed in order to scrutinise the literature and attempt to answer the main question; what does ‘performance’ mean in relation to an academic role and how is this related to an academic’s workload within the post-92 higher education1 sector? The results of the review show that the literature is dichotomous both in terms of the two areas being discrete and also in the conceptual stance taken by writers in each area. Whilst there are inferred links between workload management and performance, these have not been explored. The paper concludes by outlining what further research is needed on the linkages between workload management and staff performance specifically, using socially-critical methodology.