Effects and consequences of implementing performance-based university model; the Views of advocates and critics; A qualitative meta-synthesis approach

One of the consequences of performance-based budgeting is the university's attention and focus on indicators and final results, or performance-oriented university.  In the last decade, the use of the performance-oriented university model has become widespread in the world. Since the use of this model for Iranian universities is on the agenda of policymaker, identifying the effects and consequences of implementing this model from the views of supporters and critics was the purpose of the present research. The research method was qualitative and a document review meta-analysis type. The study documents were selected from 788 related documents, all of which were in English, related to performance-based budgeting, and published in credible databases from 2010 to 2020. In the selection process, according to the strong thematic relationship and three indicators of title, abstract and content, 25 scientific documents were selected and the content validity of these documents was verified by the Critical Appraisal Skills Program (CASP) tool. In the selection  stage of analyzing the selected documents, the sub-components and open codes of these documents were extracted by qualitative content analysis method and then categorized and combined under the main components and dimensions of the research. To validate the findings, the method of comparing the opinions of researchers with experts was used, which Kappa agreement coefficient was 0.786. Findings in terms of the positive effects of implementing the model and from the point of view of the supporters included: increasing university competition, improving efficiency and growth of quantitative academic indicators, and improving responsibility, accountability, and university participation. Furthermore, critics believed that negative consequences were included: threatening university equality, reducing the effectiveness and threatening the quality indicators of the university, and threatening the nature, independence, academic freedom, and the emergence of university resistance.