Performance Anxiety: Audit Culture and the Neoliberal New Zealand University

Authors

  • Geoff Stahl Victoria University of Wellington, Aotearoa/NewZealand

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3384/cu.2000.1525.1573618

Keywords:

audit culture, neoliberalism, research output measurement, academic publishing, Aotearoa/New Zealand

Abstract

This essay considers the role of audit culture and research output measurement regimes in Aotearoa/New Zealand. It explores the nature of neoliberalism and how it has worked its way into research and publishing, as well as departmental and teaching, contexts. This forms an important part of what Alison Hearn has called the promotional university, complete with bibliometrics and the attendant disciplinary mechanisms that work to produce “productive” researchers.

References

Cupples, Julie (2012): ‘Giving an Account of Oneself: The PBRF and the Neoliberal University’, New Zealand Geographer, 68, 14-23. DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-7939.2012.01217.x

Hearn, Alison (2008): ‘Meat, Mask, Burden: Probing the Contours of the Branded Self’, Journal of Consumer Culture, 8.2, 197-217. DOI: 10.1177/1469540508090086

Hearn, Alison (2010): ‘Through the Looking Glass: The Promotional University 2.0’, Melissa Aronczyk & Devon Powers (eds): Blowing the Up the Brand: Critical Perspectives on Promotional Culture, New York: Peter Lang, 197-219.

Lucas, Lisa (2007): ‘Research and Teaching Work within University Education Departments: Fragmentation or Integration?’, Journal of Further and Higher Education, 31.1, 17-29. DOI: 10.1080/03098770601167849

Tynan, Belinda, and Dawn Garbett (2007) ‘Negotiating the University Research Culture: Collaborative Voices of New Academics’, Higher Education Research & Development, 26.4, 411-424. DOI: 10.1080/07294360701658617

Waitere, H.J., Jeannie Wright, Marianne Tremaine, Seth Brown and Cat Jeffrey Pausé (2011): ‘Choosing Whether to Resist or Reinforce the New Managerialism: The Impact of Performance-based Research Funding on Academic Identity’, Higher Education Research & Development, 30.2, 205-217. DOI: 10.1080/07294360.2010.509760

Downloads

Published

2015-01-19

How to Cite

Stahl, G. (2015) “Performance Anxiety: Audit Culture and the Neoliberal New Zealand University”, Culture Unbound, 7(4), pp. 618–626. doi: 10.3384/cu.2000.1525.1573618.

Issue

Section

Theme: Publishing for Public Knowledge