The Managed Academic: Performance Metrics and Identity Transformation among Faculty in Massified Higher Education

Abstract

The expansion of higher education has intensified the use of performance measurement that effectively altered the role and identity of the faculty. Reliance on quantifiable factors such as research output, student ratings, and teaching success has been criticized in terms of its influence on the autonomy of the faculty and the profession. Though such changes can prove important to comprehend, there is a gap in the research in comprehending how such metrics can influence faculty at the individual level. This gap is what this research aims to address by exploring what impact that performance indicators have on faculty identity and autonomy in massified higher education systems. Peer-reviewed articles published during the period between 2015 and 2026 were analyzed using the systematic literature review (SLR) methodology. The significant findings are that the performance measures, despite being supposed to promote accountability and improve the performance of an institution, are may lead to the process of narrowing the faculty roles and the shift in professional identity. Professional staff is being pressurized to incorporate their educational activities into the institutional goals at the cost of their autonomy. The implications of these findings suggest that the performance measures, as important as they are to institutional judgment, need to be reconsidered to become less strict, and supportive of the complexity of faculty performance to foster a moderate approach to faculty freedom and institutional requirements.