Research Evaluation in the Audit Society

A challenging analysis of the impact of a new Total Quality Management (TQM) system on the basic research practices of a commercial laboratory demonstrates how the perceived Value incongruence’ between the tasks of the scientists and TQM can create distrust, anger and resistance (

Sitkin/Stickel 1996

). Indeed, the introduction of formal controls with the manifest intention of enhancing trust and transparency within the organisation seemed to have the opposite effect. The study reports how the performance measures embodied in the TQM system were perceived as ‘inappropriately precise and deterministic’ in relation to a basic research task, which was seen to be inherently ambiguous and highly uncertain. In one reported example, a laboratory manager refused to inform staff about the patent goals of the organisation, arguing, in a manner consistent with Goodhart’s law, that such targets were not only distracting but might affect the propensity of scientists to take intellectual risks (204). The manager had effectively established himself as a ‘buffer’ between the creative scientists and the management system.