On intellectual capital management as an evaluation criterion for university managers: a case study

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether universities performance management systems (PMS), consider intellectual capital (IC) management as a criterion for evaluating their managers. The issue has been addressed investigating the case study of the University of Calabria. The evaluation systems for managers of the University of Calabria were analyzed with a longitudinal approach, investigating two different systems (2012–2014 and 2015–2017). Two qualitative tools were employed: document analysis and semi-structured interviews. From a formal analysis of the evaluation systems for managers of the University of Calabria, it emerges that the reference to IC and its subcomponents is easier to identify within the individual performance component, which reduces its weight switching from the 2012–2014 to 2015–2017 evaluation system. From the analysis of semi-structured interviews, it emerges that the University of Calabria is far from considering IC substantially as a key criterion to evaluate its managers. Focusing on IC will require the development of an IC specific project addressed to make sense of this new object and of the consequent new managerial practices to give sense to IC measurements and diffuse them within the organization. The originality of the paper lies in the novelty of its aim, linking together the evaluation of universities managers, too often clouded by respect for the academicians in managerial roles, and the role of IC management as an evaluation criteria to assess their performance. The paper offers both theoretical contributions to different streams of the literature, namely the IC and PMS and public sector literature and practical contributions, filling the void between the evaluation systems of university managers as provided by theory and the application of these models in practice, a gap especially significant for public organizations.