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The purpose of this paper is to examine the management control systems developed by universities and groups within them, to manage research within UK University Business and Management Schools. Specifically, the paper analyses how universities develop their internal management control systems in response to an externally imposed regulatory system. It also provides an agenda for future research.

The paper uses a middle range approach to consider the UK Research Excellence Framework (REF) and the previous Research Assessment Exercises. It uses the language provided by a number of conceptual frames to analyse insights from the lived experience, and builds on previous literature that has recognised the perverse outcomes of such performance measurement systems.

The study finds that the internal management control systems developed by academics themselves amplify the controls imposed by the REF. These internal control systems are accepted by some academics although they encourage a movement away from previously held academic values.

This study contributes to debates about the dysfunctional impacts of the use of performance measures to manage research. Its originality lies in explaining that the management control systems developed to resist the imposition of external performance measurement systems may lead to symbolic violence where participants become involved with their own subjugation.

The term “library management” covers many different aspects of the way that a library is operated and conjures up different concepts in the minds of different people, depending on their own interests, agendas and requirements. Research into the subject is even more difficult to define because the application of research in one field can be vital to the development of another. Some researchers would not consider their research central to library matters at all, whereas the practising librarian might well see it as casting new light on a difficult area of understanding or development.

This study shows how 152 researchers from several research centers of a Portuguese university perceive the facilitators and barriers to knowledge management. Three domains are considered – knowledge gathering, creation, and diffusion. Three dimensions of barriers and facilitators were considered – individuals, socio‐organizational processes, and technology. Regarding both barriers and facilitators, but mainly barriers, the findings suggest that researchers are more sensitive to the “soft” aspects of knowledge management (i.e., individuals, socio‐organizational processes) than to the “hard” ones (i.e., technology). This suggests that, although technology is an important facilitator, it is people and their interactions that create knowledge and promote the knowledge flow.

This study aims to analyze the alignment between sustainable performance and sustainability planning in higher education, proposing a strategic map that integrates planning with the implementation of performance actions and sustainable performance on campuses.

The literature review development addresses sustainability in higher education institutions (HEIs). Data collection took place in two ways, documentary, through the analysis of documents and through an open interview, guided by a script with 13 questions. For data interpretation, the content analysis technique was applied.

To achieve the objective of this work, this study proposed a sustainable performance strategic map for better management of the university’s green strategies, based on three dimensions: internal processes, educational and sustainable performance.

This study’s main contribution was to propose a sustainable performance strategic map as a strategic management system aimed at HEIs to accelerate the promotion of sustainability in these organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the influence of university research management on institutional competitiveness, international visibility and fund‐raising.

The research findings are based on analysis of leading universities in six European countries: Belgium (Flanders), Denmark, Czech Republic, Finland, The Netherlands and Germany. For the analysis, two criteria are chosen – institutional way of work and core partnerships. This summary is compared with theoretical background for innovative research management and the conclusion is made that these two issues are much in line.

The findings suggest that majority of leading universities in the analysed countries actively realize principles of the Triple Helix and Mode 2 Science. This is realized through innovative managerial structures and strong orientation to practical implication of research production. The findings summarise the main forms of institutional work and discuss core partnering issues.

A limited number of universities are chosen and data are mainly collected from secondary sources such as institutional documents, web site information or corporate presentations. This is why it is difficult to evaluate how some formal declarations are realized in practice.

The findings may serve as a framework for considering changes in university research management structure or seeking increase of institutional competitiveness, international visibility and effective fund‐raising

The paper compares theoretic discussions on innovative research management through cooperation and specialization with existing practices in leading universities and provides summary and examples universities are taking to increase institutional effectiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into how research managers and directors conceive, adopt and adapt organizational structures to regulate and stimulate academic research.

The study used principles of a grounded theory approach for collecting and analysing data in interviews with research directors and programme managers working at universities within the discipline of Business Administration in The Netherlands.

In total, four clusters of concepts emerged from the data, related to: the definition of organization structures; the effects and by‐products of providing structures; academic research as management object; and using organizational structures. The collected clusters show that research universities adopt all kinds of organization structures (formal, informal, narrow, broad, intentional, emergent) and that the perceptions and practices of research managers are crucial for deciding whether these structures may become “seeding” or “controlling”.

The “practice turn” in organization studies has highlighted how important work practices of individual knowledge workers are, but so far has not paid systematic attention to the role of management, or has even downplayed that role. Structuration, which is a key management domain, is not inherently “good” or “bad” (seeding vs controlling), nor is avoiding structuration. Research managers as quintessential knowledge managers appear centre stage in making structures work or not. What makes structures “seeding” (or not) is their selection, combination, adjustment and/or intentional ignoration in practices of management knowing. An important mechanism is that of negotiation in attempts to accommodate possibly divergent interpretations. The concept of management knowing introduced and elaborated claims that management knowledge and practices are intertwined and not independent management knowledge categories.

The purpose of this paper is to provide assistance to universities in the process of developing their ability to identify, measure, manage and value their intangible assets.

The paper takes the form of a review of the most important intellectual capital management initiatives at Spanish public universities.

The experience gained from the case studies provides a basis for understanding how Spanish universities are measuring and managing their intellectual capital.

Despite its importance, intellectual capital at universities is scarcely dealt with in a specific manner. Up to now, only a few universities have taken the challenge of trying to measure, manage and report on intangible assets.

This study offers a perspective on how Spanish universities deal with their intellectual capital. In this sense, the first step would be the definition and diffusion of the organisation's strategic objectives. Then, critical intangibles related to these objectives should be identified and the causal network of relationships among them should be established. Afterwards, a set of indicators is defined and developed for each intangible.

This paper shows the importance of intellectual capital approaches as instruments to face the new challenges in Spanish universities. It offers practical help to universities to develop means to identify, measure, manage and value their intangible assets.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss and critically examine how formal project management (PM) tools and techniques affect the organization of university research.

The paper is empirically grounded and explores how university researchers respond to an increasing emphasis on formalized PM methods to manage research work conducted within the university. The empirical material consists of 20 interviews with research staff working with engineering, natural and medical sciences at Uppsala University, Sweden. Describing how PM techniques are increasingly imposed upon the researchers, the paper analyses different modes of relating to the formalized toolsets, and discusses their accommodation and resistance within academia.

One key finding is how the PM formalization is resisted by partial accommodation and containment. This can be described in terms of an enactment of a front- and a backstage of the research organization. At the front-stage, formal PM technology and terminology is used by specially appointed research managers as means of presenting to funding agencies and other external parties. At the backstage, researchers carry out work in more traditional forms.

The findings indicate a challenge for research to comply with increased PM formalization and secure on-going open-ended research. Second, the paper points toward a risk of young researchers being nudged out into “front-stage” administration with little chance of returning to “backstage” research.

This paper builds upon a growing area of the critical analysis of PM practice, offering insights into the tension between the values and norms of university research and an on-going formalization of PM in some organizational contexts.

The growing interest regarding intangibles and intellectual capital (IC) has extended from firms to public institutions such as universities and research centres during the last decade. Since universities are considered critical institutional actors in national innovation systems, European higher education and research institutions are going through an important transformation process with the aim of making them more comparable, flexible, transparent and competitive. The objective of the paper is two‐fold. On the one hand, its aim is to address the importance of measuring and managing IC in universities to improve research management and contribute to comparative analysis in European universities, and on the other hand, to highlight some methodological and conceptual considerations in relation to the analytical framework developed within an ongoing experience – the Observatory of European Universities (OEU).

The paper analyses a specific case within the OEU: the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM) in Spain. The problems and difficulties within the process of applying the OEU analytical framework are examined.

This analysis provides some insight into the utility of the framework. From a conceptual point of view, we find some similarities between IC approaches and the OEU, but a different terminology is identified.

This paper argues that important benefits can be achieved when adapting the Observatory's framework to the IC approach and terminology, regarding the increasing impact of IC approaches at firm and political level.