The illusion of impact: symbolic sustainability and the managerialization of sustainable development goals in higher education
批判泰晤士高等教育影响力排名，指出其鼓励象征性可持续性，即高校重声誉管理轻实质变革，并引入新阶段模型揭示排名压力导致的停滞与倒退。
This paper offers a critical examination of the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings, a globally influential framework for assessing universities’ contributions to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. It argues that the rankings’ design and implementation encourage symbolic sustainability, wherein institutions prioritize reputation management and procedural compliance over substantive change. Anchored in critical management studies, audit culture, and institutional theory, the study interrogates key methodological and ethical flaws, including overreliance on self-reported data, opaque validation mechanisms, and the reproduction of isomorphic behaviors within global higher education. Extending the Corporate Social Responsibility maturity model, the paper introduces two additional stages – Stage 0 (Idleness) and Stage –1 (Regressive Compliance) – to capture forms of stagnation and regression exacerbated by ranking pressures. Through institutional reflection and practitioner insights, the paper reveals how performance metrics can demotivate internal change agents, mask structural inequalities, and divert institutional resources away from socially or environmentally impactful initiatives. The study contributes to debates in higher education governance and sustainability by offering a novel conceptual lens for examining the unintended consequences of performance-based evaluation frameworks. It invites scholars, policymakers, and university leaders to reconsider how impact is defined, measured, and incentivized in the pursuit of sustainable development.