Understanding performance measurement practice for academics from a social Interaction perspective - a Vietnamese case study

Submission note: A thesis submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the Department of Accounting and Data Analytics, La Trobe Business School, College of Arts, Social Sciences and Commerce, La Trobe University, Bundoora.

This study investigates the interaction, motivation and structuring processes of performance measurement practices for academics at public universities. Deploying qualitative case study methodology, data were collected from archival documents, observations of evaluation meetings and 54 in-depth interviews with academics, academic managers and university managers at a Vietnamese public university. These data were then analysed and interpreted using a Discourse Analysis technique offered earlier this century by Fairclough and a theoretical framework that was developed from Turner’s Social Interaction Theory. It was found that the performance measurement practice was formed through the process by which the academics, academic-managers and university managers sent signals to each other and interpreted signals from each other. Their interactional behaviours were influenced by their stocks of knowledge, as well as different motivational needs, including the need to sustain self-concept, need for trust, need to be in-group, need for security and need for material and symbolic gratification. As the individuals achieved mutual agreement in signalling and interpreting in performance measurement activities, their interactions were structured and routinised. The routines were formed as the actors stabilised their actions (ritualisation) and their interpretations of others’ actions (normatisation) in specific situations (categorisation) and geographical locations of the interaction (regionalisation). This study contributes to the performance measurement literature by demonstrating the way the social interactions of organisational actors influence the design and working of an organisational practice.

This thesis was a recipient of the Nancy Millis Award for theses of exceptional merit.