Managing Sustainable Performance and Governance in Higher Education Institutions: A Dynamic Performance Management Approach
About this ebook
This book draws on this flourishing debate on Higher Education policy and management and investigates an innovative systemic perspective to design and implement sustainable performance management systems for academic institutions. The conditions for the success of Universities, the critical issues underlying the creation of academic value, the dynamic complexity characterizing academic governance settings, the pluralistic audience of stakeholders and related expectations, the causal interplays between organizational performance variables, represent some of the central themes around which this work is developed.
More specifically, the book suggests and discusses the adoption of a Dynamic Performance Management approach to frame the inherent organizational complexity of Higher Education Institutions, thus supporting a strategic learning perspective to design and implement relevant performance measures. This approach originates from the combination between conventional performance management and System Dynamics modeling. Many research and practice contributions prove that this methodological combination can boost the understanding and interpretation of value creation processes by identifying and exploring the causal connections amongst strategic resource allocation and consumption, corresponding performance drivers, emerging outputs, and outcomes. To test the effectiveness of this approach in University settings, a wide range of examples is offered in each book chapter. This allows readers to explore the advantages, limitations, and practical implications of adopting Dynamic Performance Management in Higher Education Institutions, as well as guide academic decision-makers towards a more robust approach to design and implement strategic management mechanisms in Universities.
About the author
Federico Cosenz is currently an Associate Professor of Business & Public Management at the University of Palermo, Italy. There, he teaches several master-level courses, such as Performance Management in the Public Sector and Business Strategy. He is a board member of the international doctoral program in “Model Based Public Planning, Policy Design, and Management” run at the Department of Political Sciences and International Relations.
Federico Cosenz held the role of University delegate for scientific support to planning, management control, performance evaluation, and statistical reporting at the University of Palermo from April 2020 to November 2021. In such a role, he coordinated the working group for designing the Strategic Plan 2021-2023, as well as the working group for the implementation of management control.He has been a visiting scholar at the University of Bergen (Norway), the Radboud University of Nijmegen (Netherlands), the Universidad Militar Nueva Granada of Bogota (Colombia), the IESE Business School of Barcelona (Spain).
Federico Cosenz has authored several academic and professional journals. He has also presented his research contributions at numerous national and international scientific conferences. In 2013 he won the “Best paper” award at the AIDEA – Italian Academy of Management annual conference, with a contribution titled “Designing Performance Management Systems in Academic Institutions: a Dynamic Performance Management View”.
His scientific and applied research interests include the following areas: performance management and governance for public and private organizations, strategic planning and management control, business model design for start-up companies and SMEs, business model innovation also from a sustainability perspective, management information systems, development of simulation models to support strategic learning and decision-making. He also carries out training and scientific support activities on the same topics through external collaborations (e.g., with the Italian National Research Council - CNR).
