Rewarding academics: Experiences of the Tenure Track System in Pakistan

Pakistan introduced the Tenure Track System (TTS) as a new performance-based reform in public universities in 2005. The purpose of this study is to understand the experiences of higher education authorities, university leaders and tenure-track faculty about the implementation of this reform. This is a qualitative interpretive study and utilised a nested case study design, focusing on two cases—Science Faculty and Social Sciences and Humanities Faculty in a large provincial university. It utilises three perspectives taken from organisation theory—instrumental, cultural and myth perspectives. The main results show instrumental problems of hierarchical authority and horizontal coordination, lack of expertise to implement, cultural compatibility problems through active resistance from some groups and active use of symbols to modify the impression of a challenging reform implementations. Summing up, this is a Western-inspired reform that meet challenging conditions in Pakistan, making is rather less successful.