RESUMO
Theoretical enquiry and empirical studies demonstrate the significance of performance management (PM) in the higher education sector and it is a fulcrum for developing a strategic role for people management within universities. In spite of the perceived weaknesses of people management in the higher education sector, in general, the current period of rapid and substantial contextual change may necessitate greater formalisation of HR practices across the British higher education sector. In addition to the changing role of the HR function and line managers, these developments may result in an increasingly stringent performance regime across the sector, especially in more hard-pressed institutions. Through a literature review and a pilot study, this paper attempts to address two main research questions: (i) what are the current performance management practices in the British Higher Education sector? and (ii) what needs to be done to strategically align these practices within HEIs in the UK? This paper discusses the wider literature related to performance management in general and to academic institutions in particular. We also undertook a small-scale qualitative study to explore the views of HR professionals on the need for, and the current performance measurement systems in their universities in the UK. The preliminary findings confirmed that PM is a key issue in the respondents' institutions, with substantial and recent changes in policy. This underscores the need for a large-scale research agenda to capture the current dynamics of change the sector is undergoing. The paper concludes by stimulating a policy debate and placing a number of research calls, along with suggestions on how these research questions may be investigated.
RESUMO
Coronavirus (COVID-19) is spreading at an enormous rate and has caused deaths beyond expectations due to a variety of reasons. These include: (i) inadequate healthcare spending causing, for instance, a shortage of protective equipment, testing swabs, masks, surgical gloves, gowns, etc.; (ii) a high population density that causes close physical contact among community members who reside in compact places, hence they are more likely to be exposed to communicable diseases, including coronavirus; and (iii) mass panic due to the fear of experiencing the loss of loved ones, lockdown, and shortage of food. In a given scenario, the study focused on the following key variables: communicable diseases, healthcare expenditures, population density, poverty, economic growth, and COVID-19 dummy variable in a panel of 76 selected countries from 2010 through 2019. The results show that the impact of communicable diseases on economic growth is positive because the infected countries get a reap of economic benefits from other countries in the form of healthcare technologies, knowledge transfers, cash transfers, international loans, aid, etc., to get rid of the diseases. However, the case is different with COVID-19 as it has seized the whole world together in a much shorter period of time and no other countries are able to help others in terms of funding loans, healthcare facilities, or technology transfers. Thus, the impact of COVID-19 in the given study is negatively impacting countries' economic growth that converts into a global depression. The high incidence of poverty and social closeness increases more vulnerable conditions that spread coronavirus across countries. The momentous increase in healthcare expenditures put a burden on countries' national healthcare bills that stretch the depression phase-out of the boundary. The forecasting relationship suggested the negative impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the global economy would last the next 10 years. Unified global healthcare policies, physical distancing, smart lockdowns, and meeting food challenges are largely required to combat the coronavirus pandemic and escape from global depression.
