Academics and Performance Systems

Using different types of incentives schemes to guide and to improve performance are an integral part of the mindset of New Public Management. This chapter suggests that a relatively large part of the target population is in fact unaware of the existence of incentive systems at their department. In a survey of all Danish department heads, 30 percent “totally” or “partly” agree that it is a good idea to reward researchers financially for publications in certain journals; 54 percent, however, “totally” or “partly” disagree. In January 2011 all 4, 984 academic employees at the selected departments were asked to fill out an online questionnaire focusing on publication strategies, coping behaviour, motivation, incentives, organization and leadership, job situation etc. A performance-based regime rewarding good research or punishing underperformers is based on a set of criteria defining rewards and penalties for certain forms of behaviour.