Establishment and application of performance measure indicators for universities

Purpose – To promote university education quality, performance measure indicators (PMIs) must be established. These indicators ensure the maintenance of university operating standards, encourage individual universities to work on inadequacies, and promote university competitiveness. The purpose of this paper is to address this issue. Design/methodology/approach – A literature analysis was conducted and European, American and Taiwanese education evaluation indicators were used to develop the PMIs. Data were collected from the following sources: US‐MBNAQ; US News & World Report; two renowned US education journals; UK University Committee Reports; UK‐CVCP/UGC; three renowned UK education evaluation newspapers, opinions from the Ministry of Education and submissions from scholars in Australia and Taiwan. A total of 13 scholars were invited to participate in the literature review and analysis, which employed Delphi methods. Findings – These indicators included 18 measurement dimensions, and 78 PMIs were developed. Applying these PMIs resulted in the creation of key performance indicators and a balanced scorecard (BSC) of performance measures. In addition, BSC represented a self‐evaluation performance indicator that universities could use to achieve the objective of performance management. Originality/value – The PMI by means of their integration into the BSC, allow management by objectives, a method to build the performance of each department and organization.