Table Of ContentPUBLIC SECTOR ORGANIZATIONS
Performance Management
at Universities
The Danish Bibliometric Research
Indicator at Work
Poul Erik Mouritzen
Niels Opstrup
Public Sector Organizations
Series Editors
B. Guy Peters
Department of Political Science
Pittsburgh University
Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Geert Bouckaert
Public Management Institute
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Leuven, Vlaams Brabant, Belgium
Organizations are the building blocks of governments. The role of
organizations, formal and informal, is most readily apparent in public
bureaucracy, but all the institutions of the public sector are comprised of
organizations, or have some organizational characteristics that affect their
performance. Therefore, if scholars want to understand how governments
work, a very good place to start is at the level of organizations involved
in delivering services. Likewise, if practitioners want to understand how
to be effective in the public sector, they would be well-advised to con-
sider examining the role of organizations and how to make organizations
more effective. This series publishes research-based books concerned with
organizations in the public sector and covers such issues as: the autonomy
of public sector organizations; networks and network analysis; bureau-
cratic politics; organizational change and leadership; and methodology
for studying organizations.
More information about this series at
http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14525
Poul Erik Mouritzen · Niels Opstrup
Performance
Management
at Universities
The Danish Bibliometric Research
Indicator at Work
Poul Erik Mouritzen Niels Opstrup
Department of Political Science Department of Political Science
Aarhus University and Public Management
Aarhus, Denmark University of Southern Denmark
Odense, Denmark
Public Sector Organizations
ISBN 978-3-030-21324-4 ISBN 978-3-030-21325-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21325-1
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG, part of Springer Nature 2020
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction
on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and
information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication.
Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied,
with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have
been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published
maps and institutional affiliations.
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
This book is dedicated to Sebastian, Bertram, David, Miriam and Rebecca.
P
reface
This book is about performance management at universities, specifically
the introduction of a performance-based research funding system in
Denmark, the so-called Bibliometric Research Indicator (BRI). Essentially,
the BRI counts the number of publications from each university on a
yearly basis, which then influences the yearly appropriation in the national
budget for each individual university. We focus on the many dilemmas
that arise when scholars are subjected to such a system and rewarded for
their publication ‘performance.’ Do they change their behaviour in order
to maximize BRI points? And if so, how does that happen? Do they ‘game
the system’ or ‘slice’ their research publications into the smallest publish-
able units? Do they put more emphasis on short-term and ‘safe’ research
at the cost of long-term and more ‘risky’ projects? University leaders also
face new challenges with a system like the BRI: How and to what extent
should they implement the system in order to affect faculty behaviour?
The first main results from the project were published in a Danish
book, En fremmed kommer til byen. Ti år med den bibliometriske forsk-
ningsindikator (A Stranger Comes to Town: Ten Years with the BRI)
(Mouritzen et al. 2018). It was obviously targeted at a Danish audi-
ence that was assumed to be particularly interested in the specific Danish
details, for instance how the different universities performed and how
the system was conceived and implemented. The present book is tar-
geted at an international audience and is quite different from its Danish
predecessor. Some of the chapters are new (4, 6, 7 and 8), while some
of the chapters in the Danish book (3, 4, 6 and 7) have been shortened
vii
viii PREfACE
considerably and now form part of Chapter 5. Almost all other chapters
have been rewritten, and new analyses have been added. Some sections
of the book are translated directly, such as the empirical analyses of mis-
representation (or ‘gaming’) in Chapter 5.
The book is the product of almost nine years of research. The project
started in 2010, and the last interviews were conducted in 2017 while
some of the hard data were collected in late 2018. During that period,
we were rather hesitant to publish results since too much public debate
could influence our main sources, namely the many scholars and univer-
sity leaders who willingly set aside time to complete our questionnaires
and participate in interviews. In the course of this long project, many
people were involved as research assistants. We wish to thank all of them
for their invaluable work throughout.
Professors Peter Munk Christiansen and Jørgen Søndergaard gave
valuable comments on the first book. Our colleague Professor Jesper
Schneider has been an invaluable advisor throughout the project and
kindly supplied us with the data and analyses presented in Chapter 13.
A special thanks should be given to our co-author on the Danish book,
Pernille Bak Pedersen, who contributed tremendously to that manuscript.
We are thankful to the members of our advisory board, Professors
Margit Osterloh, Barry Bozeman, Ivar Bleiklie, Bruno S. frey and Paul
Wouters. Since its establishment, we have held four meetings with the
board in addition to several one-to-one meetings.
We also want to give a special thanks to academic editor Kate Thulin,
who did a painstaking and wonderful job copy editing the manuscript.
finally, we thank the two foundations which made the research pos-
sible. A large grant from The Velux foundation financed most of the
expenses of the project while The Carlsberg foundation supported the
project with a two-year postdoctoral fellowship.
Aarhus, Denmark Poul Erik Mouritzen
Odense, Denmark Niels Opstrup
february 2019
reference
Mouritzen, Poul Erik, Niels Opstrup, and Pernille Bak Pedersen. 2018. En fremmed
kommer til byen. Ti år med den bibliometriske forskningsindikator. Odense:
Syddansk Universitetsforlag.
c
ontents
Part I Introduction
1 Performance Management Strikes Danish Universities 3
2 Design of the Study 23
3 Trickling Down to the Individual 37
Part II Motivational and Behavioral Effects
4 Incentive Systems Surrounding the Modern Scholar 59
5 Gaming the System 81
6 Strategic Decisions About Research and Publications 99
7 For Love or Money? 127
8 From a ‘Taste for Science’ to a ‘Taste for Publications’? 141
ix
x CONTENTS
9 Under Pressure? 165
10 Effort Substitution? 181
Part III Output and Outcomes
11 How Great Expectations on Bredgade
Were Dashed at Frue Plads 201
12 Publication Profiles 215
13 The International Impact of Danish Research 229
Part IV Conclusions
14 Havoc or Heaven? 249
15 Lessons from the Study 269
Literature 283
