Personnel Evaluation for Faculty Staff

Implications from Theory and Practice

Abstract

　 Within the international movement toward results and performance-based management in higher education, we explore the background and theory of the personnel evaluation of academic staff at the institutional level and to what extent it is implemented in Japan. The main findings are that the results and performance-oriented personnel system have been rapidly strengthened by university reform carried out by the government and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). Using the results of personnel evaluations to assign pay increases has also become widespread. The thinking of the new public management (NPM) approach and expectation theory holds that the rewarding staff performance can increase motivation. However, it is not easy to measure the results of the teaching, research, and public services of the academic staff or their other contributions to the institution with the same accuracy. It is therefore necessary to consider the relationships between performance measurement, staff motivation, and the financial resources to administer rewards in developing the personnel evaluation systems.