ABSTRACT
Audit culture evolved from Taylorist techniques aimed at improving efficiency and capacity of workers. The new patterns of life which the neoliberal subject must assimilate to are bounded by data points of audit whose number expands over time and are dictated by the ability of technology to produce them. J. Holmwood writes that the use of metrics and the technological gift of ‘big data has rendered academics available for continuous micro-management. Performance management began in universities to evaluate the performance of departments or research teams; however the use of metrics in individual performance management has become widespread, and consequently there has been disquiet amongst academics. B. Davies explains how audit has become detached from any thought of accountability for the public good and instead has become a disciplinary regime by ‘governing through unhappiness’. The process of constant assessment and accountability can actually impede research as documentation for performance management, or any other reporting task, escalates.
