Success factors of quality management in higher education: intended and unintended impacts

ABSTRACT

Expanded and increasingly diversified systems of higher education are generally differentiated vertically and/or horizontally. National quality management systems attempt to identify both kinds of differences in quality and standards across their higher education systems. But different quality management systems and processes can pose different questions about such differences and provide different answers. In so doing, they can change what is regarded as important in higher education. Institutions respond to the perceived requirements of quality management with either change and innovation or with compliance and conformity. Institutional policies may change. Cultures of quality can be either strengthened or weakened. Impacts on quality differ, with unintended impacts often more significant than the intended ones.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education
• quality management
• types of impact

Acknowledgement

The article was prepared for the international conference ‘Impact Evaluation of Quality Management in Higher Education. A Contribution to Sustainable Quality Development of the Knowledge Society’ on 16–17 June 2016, in Barcelona (Spain). The author would like to thank the team of the related impact evaluation project (co-funded by the European Commission, grant number 539481-LLP-1-2013-1-DE-ERASMUS-EIGF) for inviting him to the conference. This publication reflects the views only of the author and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributors

John Brennan is Emeritus Professor of Higher Education Research at the Open University in the UK and he is also a Visiting Professor at the University of Bath and the London School of Economics, as well as several other university affiliations. By training as a sociologist, Professor Brennan has spent most of his career engaging in research into higher education, addressing policy issues but also examining larger sociological questions concerning the relationship between higher education and broader processes of social change. He has undertaken many national and international comparative projects. He has co-authored or edited 13 books about higher education as well as countless articles and reports. For 20 years, he directed the Centre for Higher Education Research (CHERI) at the Open University.

ORCID

John Brennan http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0305-2685

Additional information

Funding

The author would like to thank the team of the related impact evaluation project [co-funded by the European Commission, grant number 539481-LLP-1-2013-1-DE-ERASMUS-EIGF] for inviting him to the conference; Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency.