Purpose This paper aims to examine how management control systems and performance measurement systems, driven by neoliberal governance, have reshaped the valuation of teaching in Australian universities. This study investigates the asymmetrical development of research and teaching evaluation and critiques the capacity of audit logics to structure academic labour. Design/methodology/approach Guided by Foucauldian governmentality and the concept of accountingisation, this study uses a longitudinal historical-institutional methodology. This study analyses enterprise bargaining agreements and institutional artefacts from five Australian public universities over four decades, mapping the pre- and post-Excellence in Research for Australia policy landscapes. Findings The analysis reveals a persistent evaluative asymmetry: research is governed by centralised, high-stakes national audit regimes, whereas teaching is managed through fragmented, low-cost proxies such as student evaluations of teaching and Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching indicators. Consequently, teaching is progressively codified into auditable labour through strict workload caps and task enumeration, incentivising defensive pedagogy and fabricating “calculable academics” while marginalising pedagogical complexity. Research limitations/implications While limited to formal institutional documents rather than lived experiences, the findings of this study underscore the urgent need for discipline-sensitive, multi-source evaluation frameworks. Future qualitative research should explore how academics navigate and negotiate these calculative regimes in practice. Originality/value This study provides the first multi-institutional, accounting-informed longitudinal analysis of Australian teaching governance. This paper offers critical theoretical insights into how calculative infrastructures entrench evaluative asymmetry, providing a foundation for reimagining academic performance metrics in the post- Excellence in Research for Australia environment.
Martin-Sardesai et al. (Thu,) studied this question.