Accounting for academia: the role of performance metrics in shaping academics’ gaming and emotional health

NPM introduced managerialism into public sector institutions. UK business schools have not only been impacted by the neoliberal changes but have also contributed to the promotion of managerialist ideology post-NPM. As a result, Performance Measurement Systems (PMSs) have been extensively adopted as an accountability and management control tool. This research aims at examining the strategies employed by UK academics to deal with various PMSs, including gaming, and the effects of heightened PMS pressure and academics’ gaming on their emotional well-being. It adopts a qualitative approach framed around a triangulation of interviews with UK academics, social media, and relevant document analysis. The results showed that university managers game the evaluation metrics by creating ambiguity around the criteria, manipulating contracts and REF submissions, fractional recruitment, or even strategies of treating students as customers. Additionally, academics cope with the pressure of intensified PMSs by gaming TEF and NSS, playing it safe by choosing the journal before the topic, blackmailing their institution or even grooming their ECRs and PhD Students. They also suffer from anxiety, stress, fatigue, pressure, and other well-being concerns related to the over-audit by the evaluation metrics.