Quality Assurance and Institutional Research for University Strategic Management

Strategic management in higher education (HE) has become data-reliant. Most higher education institutions (HEIs) all over the world have implemented quality assurance (QA) and institutional research (IR) with the purpose of generating data that that would assist in evidence-based decision making for better strategic management. However, data generated through QA and IR processes have to be integrated and streamlined in order to successfully inform strategic management. One of the challenges facing higher education institutions is to integrate the data generated by QA and IR processes effectively. This chapter examines examples of good practice for integrating the data generated by these processes for use as tools to inform strategic management, using the University of Namibia as a reference point. The chapter offers suggestions on how higher education institutions may be assisted to overcome challenges when integrating the outcomes of QA and IR processes in order to close the quality loop through effective strategic management.

Mentoring for Quality Enhancement and Fostering Industry-Ready Graduates in Higher Education

Mentoring programs play a valuable role in higher education. Formal mentoring processes and relationships increase the overall perceived quality of an educational program and the professional success of new hotel management graduates. To evaluate an established mentoring program in higher education, a single case study of the Blue Mountains International Hotel Management School at Torrens University Australia (BMIHMS @TUA) was developed and that is presented and discussed in this chapter. The evaluation of the mentoring program found that mentoring relationships enable mentees to build knowledge and skills, develop networking opportunities, build confidence, and gain self-reflection abilities. The chapter offers insights and recommendations for higher education institutions to consider when setting up mentoring programs. The knowledge gained through this research will assist higher education institutions to better prepare students for a transition to work through mentoring whilst enhancing the quality of educational courses.

Ethics Courses Teaching Linkage to Quality Management Education

Almost every management institution in India has an ethics course in their curriculum that is focused upon inculcating the value set in an individual. To understand the role of ethical education in accelerating the quality of management education, this chapter provides a discussion of implications of the questions of quality, dilemma, and pedagogy of ethical training. In the introduction, the authors emphasize on the reasons of focusing upon the ethical education, then give a brief history of ethics education in Indian management institutions. In order to show the significance, authors also show the place of ethics course in top 10 business institutions in India. Further, the authors describe the main focus of the chapter that is the contribution of ethics in management education.

Professional Integrity for Educational Quality in Management Sciences

The objective of this chapter is to analyze the importance of professional integrity as the improvement concept and ethics in the development of professionals in administration and management sciences. The research method employed is the ethnographic, documental, and life histories, complemented with field work supported by in-depth interviews and analyzed using a comparative method. The outcomes of the research on the application in management education demonstrate that the drama of economic efficiency is centered on dysfunctional professional integrity. This chapter provides a sound professional philosophy that empowers professionals to act with integrity, increases the probability for long-term success and professional fulfillment. The results provide also the basis to develop a code of conduct and regulation policies to sustain management education for professional integrity that can positively impact on business culture through influencing the behavior of key actors.

Overcoming Complacency Through Quality Intelligence in Greek Higher Education

During the last decade, an intensification of evaluation at the Greek universities has been noted, encouraged by the state and institutional initiatives aiming to reform, modernize, and cultivate a culture of excellence. The progress that has been reported was facilitated by global developments that gradually strengthened the cultural and scientific foundations of university performance evaluation and set the foundations for continuous institutional improvement and transformation. However, the role of academic leadership is crucial if universities wish to fully embrace the concept of excellence in their operations and services not from an obligatory, but from an evolutionary perspective that would allow them to learn and improve. As Greek universities are currently in the process of quality accreditation, the chapter briefly presents the framework for quality accreditation in Greek universities and underlines the critical role of academic leadership for achieving accreditation and establishing a culture for sustainable excellence.

Quality Management and Academic Leadership

Quality management in higher education is one of the measures that institutions put in place to ensure that courses and programs that are offered meet international and accreditation standards. This chapter examines how academic leaders can promote and manage quality in higher education institutions. Higher education institutions and senior faculty members appear to improve performance by ensuring that quality assurance unit enforces effective delivery to increase students and parents' satisfaction. Promotion of quality and the management of quality is not about long service but an exhibition of effective leadership that will help higher education institutions to navigate through the turbulence of challenges facing higher education institutions today. To achieve this, the academic leader is supposed to assist institutions to pursue their vision and mission to enable them to effectively manage quality.

Leadership and Innovative Approaches in Higher Education

The place of leadership support for technological innovation in advancing quality management in higher education cannot be underrated in the fourth industrial revolution. This chapter examines the role of leadership in higher education and innovative teaching and learning methods for quality assurance in higher education system. The literature review approach and author observation were adopted to cross-examine the influence of leadership on innovative teaching/learning methods and quality assurance in higher education. This chapter shows that leadership support for innovative teaching and learning methods is a benchmark for quality assurance in higher education in recent times. Therefore, no meaningful change will happen in any higher institution without a strong leadership support for innovation and quality management. Policymakers in higher education should create a climate that promotes creativity and innovation by ensuring that transformational leaders are at the helm of affairs for quality management.

Higher Education Approach to Quality Management

The situation of higher education in India does not concur with the worldwide benchmarks. Consequently, there is sufficient defense for an expanded evaluation of the quality of the nation's instructive foundations. Traditionally, these foundations accepted that quality is controllable by intrinsic assets, for example, knowledgeable and learned faculty with an impressive set of degrees and experience detailed at the end of the institute's admission brochure, and extrinsic assets like huge library rich with number of books and journals in the library, an ultra-modern campus, and size of the endowment, etc. This chapter aims at reviewing the higher education approach to quality management from an Indian perspective and deliberates on the tools and techniques like SIX SIGMA, LEAN, and TQM, most commonly used in higher education.

Quality Management Principles Application to Higher Educational Institutions

Higher educational institutions (HEIs) are going through a process of structural transformation in which policies based on sound management are of growing importance. A process of change observed when the student had become a client, HEIs desire being at the top of international rankings, impulse relations with organizations outside the HEI to search new opportunities focused on socioeconomic change, and the HEI strives to achieve continuous improvement. Quality management has a fundamental role to play in this transformation process. The objective of this chapter is to reason about the application of the eight quality management principles into HEIs.

Contemporary Perspectives on Higher Education Quality Management

Quality management is considered a very important factor for the long-term success of each and every organization. The links between quality management and organizational performance can never be overemphasized. Quality management in both goods and services industries gives a company a distinct competitive advantage over its competitors in the market place. Market share can also be gained or lost over the level of quality management in an organization; that is if an organization's quality management process is poor, the market share is lost, and conversely, if it is quality management is good, a market share is gained. Quality is, therefore, a competitive priority for any serious organization. Quality management is the only factor that ensures an organization's survival and growth especially in institutions of higher learning and other service organizations. Quality management focuses on meeting consumers' needs, meeting the competition, improving continuously, and extending these concerns to all phases of business.