Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon

an organization as a system and regard themselves as objective observers, who define
problem situations and make decisions on what interventions they need to make in
order to improve organizational performance and above all increase the earnings
expectations upon which share prices depend.” (Stacey, 2010: 12).
To perform in the sense of performativity four elements have to be taken care of
(Scott, 1998). The first is that reality is administered in a simplified way in numbers. The
second is the conviction that rational design will prompt improvement. The third one
is an authoritarian relation between the rulers and the ruled. The fourth is that possibilities
to resist the plans are limited. If these conditions are realized, success would be
guaranteed, yet only in the eyes of the powerful practioners. These four elements can
more or less be recognised in developments within the UAS. In practice performativity
- in the disguise of NPM - is assumed to have brought new orientations within and for
management, through which the needed authority is indicated in line with soft constraining
(Courpasson, 2006). Strategic and leadership skills, a more masculine-competitive
attitude, loyal acceptance of the new way of working and more feminized
caring skills (for instance coaching and counselling) are demanded (Thomas and
Davies, 2005).
Policy in line with NPM is dominated by a strong wish for efficiency: with the least of
efforts a maximum of results is to be achieved. To be able to account for efficiency in a
UAS an educational reality must be turned into an accountable reality (Frissen,
2008)2008. In due time in the slipstream of accountability a great part of the discussions
and policy within the UAS became no longer dominated – at least among managers
if they meet - by what we were doing, but by the amount of what we were doing
and how to bring about a huge increase in the amount of what we are doing. Key
elements of NPM (Lapsley, 2009) as mutual competition, hands-on top management,
explicit formal measurable standards and emphasis on output controls were introduced
in due course. From the discussions about the performance agreements (chapter
5) it is clear that from a governmental perspective the return of education in terms of
the amount of certificates and fitness for the labour market has become decisive. The
discussions about dissent (chapter 6) indicate that in practice this governmental
perspective is contested.
Presumably performativity rumbles on in Higher Education and the UAS. Biesta (2012)
calls that the learnification of education, if quantitative indicators for quality are
confused with pedagogical - normative - quality as such. Learnification is the lack of
discussion about the pedagogical purposes of education, it is as if within education
only cognitive learning counts instead the attention to be paid to for instance good
citizenship. Presumably it is education without vision (Vries, 2008), the triumph of
emptiness (Alvesson, 2013) with pervert consequences to counterfeit quality (Carter et
al., 2011; Raad voor Maatschappelijke Ontwikkeling, 2011; Stacey, 2010; Wild, 2013). The
dominant message is quite liberal: everything is one’s own choice and one’s own
responsibility (Brinkgreve, 2014).
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