This article examines the implications of new public management (NPM) reforms on higher education, challenging the reliance on extrinsic motivations that dominate current university management practices, as shaped by Human Capital and Rational Choice theories. The adoption of NPM emphasizes efficiency and measurable results, which, while appealing, risk undermining the intrinsic value of teaching and research. The article argues that these frameworks provide a limited understanding of human motivation, ultimately leading to unintended negative consequences for academic environments. In response, the author proposes an alternative management framework grounded in the Ethical Personalist approach, which prioritizes holistic development and intrinsic motivations in university governance. By drawing on the tradition of Personalist philosophy, the article contends that a more comprehensive view of human action, which balances extrinsic and intrinsic motivations, can foster a healthier academic culture. The proposed framework aims to offer practical recommendations for university leaders and policymakers, encouraging a shift towards governance models that genuinely enhance educational quality and community engagement. This is the first comprehensive articulation of an Ethical Personalist approach to academic management, seeking to revitalize and enrich higher education practices amidst ongoing critiques of NPM’s efficacy.
AcevedoA. (2012). Personalist business ethics and humanistic management: Insights from Jacques Maritain. Journal of Business Ethics, 105(2), 197–219.
2.
Ahlers-NiemannA. (2007). University culture and its discontents: Some socio-analytic reflections on a university as a non-potential space. Bergische Universität Wuppertal.
3.
AkrivouK., BernacchioC., MeléD., & ScalzoG. (2023). Editorial: Personalism and moral psychology: Re-humanizing economies and organizations. Frontiers in Communication, 8, 1182356.
AlfordH. (2018). The practical wisdom of personalism. Journal of Management Development, 29(7/8), 697–705.
6.
AlvessonM. (2013). The triumph of emptiness: Consumption, higher education, & work organization. Oxford University Press.
7.
AnowarF., HelalM. A., AfrojS., SultanaS., SarkerF., & MamunK. A. (2014). A critical review on world university ranking in terms of top four ranking systems. In ElleithyK. & SobhT. (Eds.), New trends in networking, computing, e-learning, systems sciences, and engineering (Vol. 312, pp. 559)–566). Springer.
8.
ArjoonS., Turriago-HoyosA., & ThoeneU. (2018). Virtuousness and the common good as a conceptual framework for harmonizing the goals of the individual, organizations, and the economy. Journal of Business Ethics, 147, 143–163.
BaconE. (2014). Neo-collegiality: Restoring academic engagement in the managerial university. Leadership Foundation for Higher Education.
11.
BaronP., & CorbinL. (2012). Student engagement: Rhetoric and reality. Higher Education Research and Development, 31(6), 759–772.
12.
BeatonF. (2022). How do I know who I am? Academic professional development, peer support, and identity for practitioners who teach. International Journal for Academic Development, 27(3), 238–252.
13.
BeckerG. S. (1964). Human capital: A theoretical and empirical analysis, with special reference to education. University of Chicago Press.
14.
BeckerG. (1976). The economic approach to human behavior. University of Chicago Press.
15.
BengtssonJ. O. (2006). The worldview of personalism. Origins and early development. Oxford University Press.
16.
BermanE. P. (2012). Explaining the move toward the market in US academic science: How institutional logics can change without institutional entrepreneurs. Theory and Society, 41(3), 261–299.
17.
BexleyE., JamesR., & ArkoudisS. (2011). The Australian academic profession in transition. Centre for the Study of Higher Education, The University of Melbourne.
18.
BilousR. H., HammersleyL., & LloydK. (2018). Reflective practice as a research method for co-creating curriculum with international partner organisations. International Journal of Work-Integrated Learning, 19(3), 287–296.
19.
BouckaertL. (2011). Personalism. In BouckaertL. & ZsolnaiL. (Eds.), Handbook of spirituality and business. Palgrave Macmillan.
20.
BradyN., & BatesA. (2015). The standards paradox: How quality assurance regimes can subvert teaching and learning in higher education. European Educational Research Journal, 15(2), 155–174. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474904115617484
21.
BrembsB., ButtonK., & MunafoM. (2013). Deep impact: Unintended consequences of journal rank. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7(291), 1–12.
22.
BruniL. (2013, August3). Oltre l’ideologia dell’incentivo. Avvenire. bit.ly/3xohjzV
23.
BurgosJ. M. (2018). An introduction to personalism. The Catholic University America Press.
24.
ChapmanC. A., Bicca-MarquesJ. C., Calvignac-SpencerS., FanP., FashingP. J., GogartenJ., GuoS., HemingwayC. A., LeendertzF., LiB., MatsudaI., HuoR., Serio-SilvaJ. C., & StensethN. C. (2019). Games academics play and their consequences: How authorship, h-index and journal impact factors are shaping the future of academia. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 286(1916), 20192047.
25.
ChoryR. M., & OffsteinE. H. (2016). “Your Professor Will Know You as a Person”: Evaluating and rethinking the relational boundaries between faculty and students. Journal of Management Education, 41(1), 9–38.
26.
ChristensenT., & LægreidP. (2022). Taking stock: New public management (NPM) and post-NPM reforms—Trends and challenges. In LadnerA. & SagerF. (Eds.), Handbook on the politics of public administration. Public management—A new paradigm. Edward Elgar.
27.
ColliniS. (2012). What are universities for?Penguin.
28.
DanS., LægreidP., & ŠpačekD. (2024). NPM reconsidered: Towards the study of enduring forms of NPM. Public Management Review, 26(9), 2531–2541. https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2024.2375561
29.
DeanB. A., & TimmermansJ. A. (2022). We need each other: Academic development work as necessary reciprocity. International Journal for Academic Development, 27(3), 217–220.
30.
DeemR., & BrehonyK. J. (2005). Management as ideology: The case of ‘new managerialism’ in higher education. Oxford Review of Education, 31(2), 217–235.
31.
DesideriA., LanducciS., & PezzoliS. (2024). New public management principles and the emergence of third mission in Italian, Spanish and French universities. Italian Journal of Sociology of Education, 16(3), 25–54.
32.
DingelM., & PuntiG. (2023). Building faculty-student relationships in higher education. Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, 31(1), 61–82. https://doi.org/10.1080/13611267.2023.2164976
33.
DORA. (2012). San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment. https://sfdora.org/read/
34.
EdwardsM. A., & RoyS. (2017). Academic research in the 21st century: Maintaining scientific integrity in a climate of perverse incentives and hypercompetition. Environmental Engineering Science, 34(1), 51–61.
35.
EneauJ. (2008). From autonomy to reciprocity, or vice versa? French personalism’s contribution to a new perspective on self-directed learning. Adult Education Quarterly, 58(3), 229–248.
36.
FreyB. (2010). Withering academia? [CESifo working paper No 3209]. Institute for Empirical Research in Economics.
37.
FreyB. (2012). Crowding out and crowding in of intrinsic preferences. In BrousseauE., DedeurwaerdereT., & SiebenhunerB. (Eds.), Reflexive governance for global public goods. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
38.
FrostJ., & BrockmannJ. (2014). When qualitative productivity is equated with quantitative productivity: Scholars caught in a performance paradox. Z Erziehungswiss, 17(6), 25–45.
39.
GargR., LevinE., & TremblayL. (2016). Emotional intelligence: Impact on post-secondary academic achievement. Social Psychology of Education, 19, 627–642.
40.
GrueningG. (2001). Origin and theoretical basis of new public management. International. Public Management Journal, 4(1), 1–25.
41.
HagenauerG., & VoletS. E. (2014). Teacher–student relationship at university: An important yet under-researched field. Oxford Review of Education, 40(3), 370–388.
42.
HamannJ. (2016). The visible hand of research performance assessment. Higher Education, 72, 761–779.
43.
HerfeldC. S. (2009). The motive of commitment and its implications for rational choice theory. Analyse & Kritik, 31(2), 291–317.
44.
HicksD., WoutersP., WaltmanL., De RijckeS., & RafolsI. (2015). Bibliometrics: The Leiden Manifesto for research metrics. Nature, 520, 429–431.
45.
HoevelC. (2025). The university under the rule of global technocracy: Rise and fall of the academic industry. Taylor & Francis.
46.
KimY. K., & SaxL. J. (2017). The impact of college students’ interactions with faculty: A review of general and conditional effects. In PaulsenM. (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (pp. 85–139). Springer.
47.
LawrenceP. A. (2008). Lost in publication: How measurement harms science. Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics, 8(1), 9–11.
48.
MarginsonS. (2009). University rankings, government and social order: Managing the field of higher education according to the logic of the performative present-as-future. In Re-reading education policies (pp. 584–604). Brill.
49.
Martínez‐AlemánA. M. (2007). The nature of the gift: Accountability and the professor‐student relationship. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 39(6), 574–591.
50.
MeléD. (2009). Integrating personalism into virtue-based business ethics: The personalist and the common good principles. Journal of Business Ethics, 88(1), 227–244.
51.
MirowskiP., & SentE. M. (Eds.). (2002). Science bought and sold: Essays in the economics of science. University of Chicago Press.
52.
MolesworthM., NixonE., & ScullionR. (2009). Having, being and higher education: The marketisation of the university and the transformation of the student into consumer. Teaching in Higher Education, 14(3), 277–287.
53.
MonasterskyR. (2005). The number that’s devouring science. Chronicle of Higher Education, 52(8), A12.
54.
MorrisL. S., GrehlM. M., RutterS. B., MehtaM., & WestwaterM. L. (2022). On what motivates us: A detailed review of intrinsic v. extrinsic motivation. Psychological Medicine, 52, 1801–1816.
55.
MurphyP. (2015). Universities and innovation economies. The creative wasteland of post-industrial society. Ashgate.
56.
NaughtonM., HabischA., LenssenG., & AlfordH. (2010). The practical wisdom of personalism. Journal of Management Development, 29(7–8), 697–705.
57.
NowakowskiK., SkowronŁ., & Mazur-WierzbickaE. (2024). Personalistic ethics—An axiological dimension of Management 5.0. In Organizational development, innovation, and economy 5.0 (pp. 138–149). Routledge.
58.
OpdebeeckH. (2017). Rediscovering a personalist economy. In RonaP. & ZsolnaiL. (Eds.), Economics as a moral science (virtues and economics) (Vol. 1). Springer.
59.
OsterlohM. (2010). Governance by numbers. Does it really work in research?Analyse und Kritik, 32(2), 267–283.
60.
PleschováG. (2022). Review of relationship-rich education. How human connections drive success in college. International Journal for Academic Development, 27(3), 299–300.
61.
PohlenzP., BerndtS., & HartmannJ. (2025). University networks for higher education quality development: Between mutual trust and control. Higher Education Policy, 38(3), 600–618.
62.
ScalzoG., AkrivouK., & Fernández GonzálezM. J. (2023). A personalist approach to business ethics: New perspectives for virtue ethics and servant leadership. Business Ethics, the Environment and Responsibility, 32(S2), 145–158.
63.
SchimankU. (2005). “New public management” and the academic profession: Reflections on the German situation. Minerva, 43(4), 361–376.
64.
SchultzT. W. (1961). Investment in human capital. American Economic Review, 51(1), 1–17.
65.
ScottJ. (2000). Rational choice theory. In BrowningG., HalcliA., & WebsterF. (Eds.), Understanding contemporary society: Theories of the present. Sage Publications.
66.
SimonsK. (2008). The misused impact factor. Science, 322(5899), 165.
67.
SnijdersI., RikersR. M. J. P., WijniaL., & LoyensS. M. M. (2018). Relationship quality time: The validation of a relationship quality scale in higher education. Higher Education Research & Development, 37(2), 404–417.
68.
SnijdersI., WijniaL., RikersR. M. J. P., & LoyensS. M. M. (2020). Building bridges in higher education: Student–faculty relationship quality, student engagement, and student loyalty. International Journal of Educational Research, 100, 101538.
69.
SpaemannR. (2017). Persons. The difference between “someone” and “something”. Oxford University Press.
70.
SternJ. (2016). Personalism and the personal in higher education research. In Values and virtues in higher education research (pp. 64–77). Routledge.
71.
SuW., LyuB., ChenH., & ZhangY. (2020). How does servant leadership influence employees’ service innovative behavior? The roles of intrinsic motivation and identification with the leader. Baltic Journal of Management, 15(4), 571–586.
72.
SwansonE., & ColeD. (2022). The role of academic validation in developing mattering and academic success. Research in Higher Education, 63, 1368–1393.
73.
TregoningJ. (2018). How will you judge me if not by impact factor?Nature, 558, 345.
74.
TrolianT. L., JachE. A., HansonJ. M., & PascarellaE. T. (2016). Influencing academic motivation: The effects of student–faculty interaction. Journal of College Student Development, 57(7), 810–826.
75.
WarrenF. (2022). Diffracting peer observation: Talking about differences, not looking for perfection. International Journal for Academic Development, 27(3), 292–296.
76.
WattH. M., & RichardsonP. W. (2020). Motivation of higher education faculty: (How) it matters!International Journal of Educational Research, 100, 101533.
77.
WhetstoneJ. T. (2002). Personalism and moral leadership: The servant leader with a transforming vision. Business Ethics: A European Review, 11(4), 385–392.
78.
WilsdonJ. (2016). The metric tide: Independent review of the role of metrics in research assessment and management. Sage Publications.
79.
WoutersP., SugimotoC., LarivièreV. R., McVeighM., PulvererB. E., de RijckeS., & WaltmanL. (2019). Rethink impact factors: Better ways to judge a journal. Nature, 569, 621–623.
80.
YeapS. B. (2024). Did ethical leadership help to increase academic staff’s innovative work behavior? The mediating role of intrinsic motivation and proactive personality. Current Psychology, 43(11), 9625–9637.
81.
ZamagniS., & BruniL. (Eds.). (2013). Handbook on the economics of philanthropy, reciprocity and social enterprise. Edward Elgar Publishing.
