Challenges of Implementing a Performance and Reward System in Higher Education Institutions in Pakistan: Perceptions of
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Challenges of Implementing a Performance and Reward System in Higher Education Institutions in Pakistan: Perceptions of Top Leaders in Contending Regulatory Bodies Tayyeb Ali Khan 1 & Tom Christensen 2 Accepted: 16 September 2020/ # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract This article is a study of the challenges of implementing a performance and rewards management system for academics (Tenure Track System - TTS) in Pakistan over the last decade. The main empirical focus is on the perceptions of the leading implementer, the Higher Education Commission (HEC). These are supplemented by the perceptions of the Provincial Higher Education Commission (PHEC) in Punjab. Semi-structured interviews and document analysis were the two methods used to collect data. The study is based on two perspectives from organizational theory, a structural and a cultural perspective. The main findings highlight how leaders implemented TTS despite its incompatibility with the structure and culture of public universities in Pakistan. The study also revealed tensions between two reward systems – BPS and TTS – as well as the effects of the 18th constitutional amendment on the implementation of higher education programs. This study contributes insights into the reform of the higher education system in developing countries in the context of NPM. Keywords Higher education reform . Tenure track system (TTS) . Basic pay scale (BPS) . Implementation . Pakistan
* Tom Christensen [email protected] Tayyeb Ali Khan [email protected]
1
Institute of Administrative Sciences, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan
2
Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
Khan T.A., Christensen T.
Introduction Over the last three decades many countries around the world have adopted and attempted to implement public sector reforms (Pollitt and Bouckaert 2017). In the two waves of reform known as New Public Management (NPM) and post-NPM, there has been some debate about whether these waves represent global convergence, following certain generic principles, or whether countries have followed divergent paths stemming from their specific structural and cultural features (Tight 2007). The NPM reforms started in the early 1980s and were based on a mixture of new institutional economic theory and management theories. They focused on devolution, efficiency, performance management, use of markets and service-orientation (Christensen and Lægreid 2007). Post-NPM reforms emerged in the late 1990s as a reaction to NPM. They did not replace it, however, but introduced a renewed focus on centralization, more vertical and horizontal coordination, and cultural integration. Since then, public-sector reforms around the world have been a complex and hybrid mixture of these two reform waves, resulting in multi-layered forms of public organization (cf. Mahoney and Thelen 2010). Globally, higher education reforms have followed the same main trajectory as public-sector reforms, but with a wide variety of single reform elements that do not always fit together (B
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