Antonella Cugini () (Università di Padova) Giovanna Michelon () (Università di Padova)
Abstract
Notwithstanding a growing interest towards performance management systems for universities, little is known on their application to academic departments. Being an institution dedicated to research, a department presents specific characteristics: creativity, professional autonomy, low degree of repetitiveness, uncertainty on results, unclear relation between input and output. Such peculiarities make the evaluation and measurement of its performance particularly difficult. The purpose of the paper is the exploration and development of a performance evaluation approach which is suitable for the particular features of an academic department. As this paper is explorative in nature, we use a qualitative methodology, to identify dimensions of performance evaluation suitable for application to an academic department. Data are collected for the case study of a department of the University of Padua, Italy. After identifying the relations between the four perspective of the balanced scorecard and identifying the strategic maps, the case study proposes a set of goals and measures which are suitable to satisfy the managerial needs of the analyzed department. The paper contributes to the performance evaluation literature in three main ways. It extends the concept of customer by considering a wider systems of stakeholders; it emphasize the strategic role of the financial dimension as a driver for achieving the mission and it highlights the need to coordinate the different stakeholders involved in the enhancement of strategy, from academic and administrative staff, to different types of customers and the community in general.
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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno" in its series "Marco Fanno" Working Papers with number
0054.
Find related papers by JEL classification: M10 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting - - Business Administration - - - General M41 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting - - Accounting - - - Accounting
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