Abstract:

Research performance in higher education is shaped not only by individual academic ability, but also by the operating conditions under which academic work is organized and carried out. Existing studies have identified many system-level and organizational determinants of research performance, including funding regimes, policy and governance frameworks, evaluation systems, workload planning, institutional support, ICT infrastructure, managerial practices, and research culture. However, less attention has been given to how these determinants are translated into the everyday work practices through which research is actually produced and sustained. This paper addresses this gap by proposing the Work-Execution Practice Model (WEP), a conceptual model developed from a PRISMA-informed literature synthesis of peer-reviewed English-language studies published between 2016 and 2026. Rather than presenting a full systematic review of all determinants, the paper focuses on the model-building contribution of the review. The WEP model explains research performance as the outcome of a layered process in which system-level determinants shape university-level organizational arrangements, these arrangements are filtered through academic units, and they are finally expressed in individual work-execution practices. These practices include research-time organization, the handling of administrative and compliance tasks, research coordination, resource use, and continuity of workflow. Research performance is conceptualized not only as visible scholarly outputs, such as publications, grants, citations, and journal standing, but also as the capacity to sustain research work over time. The main contribution of the paper is to make visible the “in-between” mechanisms connecting operating conditions with research outcomes and to provide a conceptual basis for future empirical and comparative research on academic work in higher education.

Keywords:

Research performance, operating conditions, work-execution practice, higher education institutions.