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\nInsiders’accounts of promises and problems  \nLaurie Field  \nMacquarie University  \nMany researchers have investigated the appropriateness of pay for outperformance,(also called ‘merit-based pay’ and ‘performancebased pay’) for academics, but a review of this body of work shows that the voice of academics themselves is largely absent. This article is a contribution to addressing this gap, summarising the views of a sample of academics at one Australian university about the promisesand problems of outperformance pay. The resultant close-up perspective reveals several important contrasts, most notably (a) the very different responses of business academics and academics in non-business disciplines to the concept of pay for outperformance (with business academics tending to be strongly in favour and non-business academics tending to be strongly opposed) and (b) where a pay for outperformance scheme exists, as it does in the faculty of business discussed here, the contrast between views about pay for outperformance in principle (strongly supported) and as actually implemented (widely criticised). In addition to these contrasts, the material presented raises many issues for universities considering pay for outperformance and for academics interested in the realities of such schemes, including the many (perhaps insurmountable) challenges surrounding implementation and the real possibility that, for academics achieving at or above base-level expectations, outperformance pay may actually de-motivate in the long term.  \nKeywords: academic, remuneration, pay, merit, performance  \nIntroduction  \nNew public management (NPM) thinking, and particularly the obsession with surveillance and measurement aimed at increasing employee outputs (Diefenbach, 2009), provides the perfect context for paying academics salary loadings for outperformance. Each of the components of a pay for outperformance scheme – including quantitative representations of ‘performance’; control over how attributes like ‘quality’are assessed;pressure on academics to deliver outputs which align with the strategic priorities  \nof universities; enticing academics into annual zero-sum competitions for limited loadings pools; and discounting human qualities like commitment and creativity – sits comfortably with NPM ideology.  \nBut pay for outperformance is not only attractive to university management because of its links with NPM; it also has innate psychological appeal. For example, it resonates with the connection suggested by expectancy theory between people’s effort and outcomes they value (Van Eerde & Thierry, 1996), and with the relationship anticipated by reinforcement theory between rewardsand behaviour (Perry, Mesch, & Paarlberg, 2006) .  \nvol. 57, no. 2, 2015 Using outperformance pay to motivate academics Laurie Field 5  \nA U S T R A L I A N U N I V E R S I T I E S ’ R E V I E W  \nThis article takes a close look at the workings of the pay for outperformance scheme at one Australian university, drawing on in-depth interviews with a range of academics, including not only participants in the scheme but also a number who did not know that the scheme existed. Business academics at the case study university receive salary loadings designed to reflect the extent to which they outperform a set of base requirements. Such arrangements are commonly referred to in the US as‘merit-based pay’ and elsewhere as ‘performance-based pay’. However, the terms ‘pay for outperformance’ and‘outperformance pay’are the main ones used in this article because they describe more accurately the thinking behind such schemes: it is not ‘merit’ or ‘performance’in absolute terms that is rewarded, but outperformance relative to a set of base expectations.  \nThe effectiveness of outperformance pay for academics  \nQuestions about what motivates academics and about the effectiveness of outperformance ","cbCaipVRjEsyyHtg","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaipVRjEsyyHtg","pdf",208861,12,"English","# Introduction\n## New public management and surveillance logic\n## Psychological appeal of rewards\n# Effectiveness of outperformance pay for academics\n## Academic voice largely absent in prior studies\n## Promising results reported in earlier research\n## Methodological concerns and cautions","[{\"question\":\"What gap does the article address about outperformance pay for academics?\",\"answer\":\"It addresses the lack of academics’ own voices in research on the effectiveness of paying academics for outperformance by summarizing views from a sample at one Australian university.\"},{\"question\":\"How do responses differ between business and non-business academics?\",\"answer\":\"Business academics tend to support pay for outperformance strongly, while academics in non-business disciplines tend to oppose it strongly.\"},{\"question\":\"What criticism emerges when a scheme exists in practice?\",\"answer\":\"Even where pay for outperformance is supported in principle, implementation is widely criticized, including concerns related to how “quality” is assessed and how rewards are structured.\"}]","Using outperformance pay to motivate academics | PDF",1792079478]