Adam Smith Business School

Professor  Mariannunziata Liguori, Durham University

"The quantification of teaching quality as a means of individual reification" 
Wednesday, 18 March 2026. 12:00-13:30 

Room 588AB The Adam Smith Business School building

Abstract

The paper adopts the lenses of reification (the objectification of reality in relation to the way things are perceived and structured at the individual level) and framing theory to explore actors’ understanding of performance-measurement systems (such as the Teaching Excellence Framework) relating to the quality of teaching within the university sector. The research draws on comparative case studies of four English universities, document analysis and interviews with government officials. The findings highlight that linguistic framing tasks used at the individual level provide evidence of reification and contribute to reinforce it via the deployment of arguments providing reasons for action/inaction based on efficacy, and through the use of diagnostic and prognostic frames that articulate concepts only within the prevailing ideology. The paper voices significant apprehension about the dysfunctional (and likely mission-damaging) effects of extant (reifying) university teaching measurement systems, and calls for a more-cautious approach and more critical reflections of current practices that have led the sector to the uncritical acceptance of neoliberal tools and ideas.

Bio

Mariannunziata Liguori is Professor of Accounting and co-director of the International Centre of Public Accountability at Durham University Business School, where she moved after working at Queen’s University Belfast and Bocconi University. She has been Chair of BAFA Public Services and Charities Special Interest Group (where she was previously secretary) since 2022, and permanent co-chair of the EIASM Workshop on the Challenges of Managing the Third Sector since 2024. She is Associate Editor of Financial Accountability & Management and the British Accounting Review, and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management. Her research interests relate to processes of accounting change, control of outsourced public services and performance management in the public and not-for-profit sectors. She has edited a number of Special Issues in important journals in the area and published in a number of leading journals in the field, such as Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, Critical Perspectives on Accounting, Organisations Studies and Public Administration.

 

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First published: 2 February 2026