Evaluation of the performance of French academics in management sciences before and after the 2009 French university reform : a reading from the theory of organizational architecture

The aim of this paper is to present the procedures for the evaluation of academics in management sciences in France. After recalling the characteristics of the evaluation procedures before the implementation of ongoing reforms, an assessment of possible consequences of the latter is conducted in light of the theory of organizational architecture. This theory presumes a causal link between organizational performance and consistency between allocation of decision rights, incentive systems and performance evaluation. The analysis suggests that the expected benefits of reform may be compromised due to an underestimation of the costs associated with implementing the new architecture, the apparent ignorance of the issues of complementarity and coherence between components of the architecture and the possible crowding out effect between intrinsic and extrinsic motivations.