**1. Introduction**

Universities strive to promote their reputation as centres of learning, opportunity, enterprise, innovation and social development. Yet the business and financial operations of universities are inseparable from these lofty objectives and aspirations. Hence, the business prowess of universities is often conflated with academic quality. The application of proxy criteria for academic quality to benchmark higher education at national and international level can be problematic. The criteria and techniques used to measure and compare institutions impact benchmark performance. For example, among the top 50 national universities in the *US News and World Report Best*  *Colleges* rankings there is an estimated 70% correlation between level of university funding and university benchmark performance [1]. When examined further we find these rankings include the following proxy criteria for quality or "Best":


Government and state support, strong research funding, high student fees, large endowment funds and philanthropy form mutually supporting characteristics that enable the "best" universities to trade on prestige and exclusivity. Yet there remains a question mark over this perception of quality and the quality of the student experience measured against specific educational criteria. One might also ask how the other 30% of universities outperform their funding-based rankings within the self-perpetuating wealth centric model.

In contrast to the USA, universities in the European Union (EU) operate a somewhat different model, with measures of quality that value social capital as well as economic drivers. In both the USA and Europe there are sufficient aspects of academic quality at the student experience level that can be controlled and assured to raise concerns regarding the use of proxies for academic quality. In acknowledging the academic and business aspects of university identity and mission, it is important not to conflate these as one and the same.

Within the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) the philosophy of quality control and quality assurance has evolved significantly since the Bologne Declaration in 1999 [2]. In addition to quality control and quality assurance, quality enhancement is now central to the EU academic quality philosophy. Acknowledging that different states in the EU are at different stages in higher education quality development, the European Standards and Guidelines [3] guide the development and enhancement of higher education quality across the EU. At the micro level, periodic institutional review, critical self-study and peer review are the key techniques and tools used to underpin institutional quality.

#### **2. The academic business nexus in higher education**

In light of the complex and distinctive mission of universities to inspire learning and nurture new ideas, definitions of academic quality based on single stakeholder views are often contested [4–6]. To capture the essence of inspiring students, nurturing learning and of creating new knowledge, concepts of higher education quality limited to inputs and outputs or to extra-curricular experience or to value adding, do not in themselves provide sufficient insight to the participants in an academic institution [7]. This research based on one university in Ireland, looked inside the black box of quality control and assurance in higher education.

The quality journey in higher education goes beyond the framework of policies and procedures to quality as a lived and meaningful experience from which knowledge and innovation can arise. This dynamic paradigm of quality control and assurance addresses the constantly changing nature of higher education organizations.

*Quality in Higher Education: Navigating the Academic Business Nexus DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.113989*

Shifting job roles, changes in organization mission and higher qualifications among professional staff have given rise to the concept of the "third space", reflecting the heightened interdependence of different staff roles emerging in Australia and Singapore [8].

Tam [7] contends that in universities, "*Quality is a highly contested concept and has multiple meanings to people who conceive higher education and quality differently".* Tam concludes that the varying models of measuring quality are underpinned by explicit and/or tacit differences in understanding and assumptions. The wide range of internal and external stakeholders, with often quite varied vested interests, has resulted in HE quality becoming contested territory of national, industrial, academic, non-academic and student perspectives.

The academic business nexus is central to the organizational tensions in universities. In the EHEA the dominant contemporary view of universities is as an instrument of the state, social cohesion and economic development [9]. Universities could be characterized as finding themselves in a tug of war between academia on the one hand and external stakeholder interests on the other [10].

A study of staff views on academic quality assurance (AQA) was carried out in a university in Ireland to discern and understand the views of the different categories of university staff on AQA. The methodology of the study employed a series of progressively refined survey questionnaires, known as the Delphi Method, and a focus group of the university's quality assurance managers and executive managers, to illuminate underlying perceptions and tensions between different staff role identities [11]. Over 250 staff participated in the study, self-identifying as 72% academic, 11% administration, 9% student services and 8% management.

#### **3. Staff views on quality control and assurance**

The study provided an evidence-based understanding of staff identities and their impact on AQA within the university. Structured around six themes, the study initially documented staff views on quality and the application of quality control and assurance techniques and tools. The study found a range of views on quality management in general, yet with a high level of consensus among the different staff role groups on the value of the key quality techniques and applications in higher education. There was general endorsement across the university for the inclusion of all staff in quality management. In the words of one quality manager:

*"Yes, because it reflects all the stakeholders involved in ensuring that what we do provides quality. So, you are getting the delivery side, the administration side in ensuring that all the service areas, and the management thinking in terms of the policy side of what we decide in terms of quality. It's very much reflective of all the audiences that need to be represented".*

The quality experts in the study confirmed that the focus of quality management is the provision of quality service to students. Responsibility for education quality management was attributed to academic staff by 78% of respondents, with 19% attributing primary responsibility to management and 3% referencing quality management by external bodies. These differing views were considered to arise mainly from the specific organization culture of collegiate participation and to a lessor extent from

staff role group identities. While external oversight is an internationally accepted aspect of higher education quality management, over reliance on external responsibility can reflect an internal abdication of quality responsibility.

Different staff role groups held overlapping views on academic quality control and assurance: 63% of management staff and 64% of administration staff viewed academic quality as the primary measurement of a university, while 53% of academic staff and 64% of student support staff expressed the view that education quality goes beyond academic quality as the primary measurement. We see a contrast here in views of quality between staff who interact with students directly and those who operate organization systems.

On the nature of the quality control and assurance system in place, 57% of staff viewed the system as *"A collegiate system of excellence"* while 38% of Staff viewed the quality system as *"Operational policies & procedures*". A danger for quality control and assurance in people-based systems, is that it can be experienced as box ticking exercises. To avoid this pitfall in higher education it is important for staff to embrace quality control and assurance as an essential part of the organization's commitment to excellence, by continually raising consciousness of the nature and importance of quality. In this study, 78% of staff acknowledged the effectiveness of the quality system in helping to improve quality, an important measure of credibility for any quality control and assurance techniques and applicants. In addition, 66% of staff expressed the view that the quality system also impacted positively on the wider student experience. From the university perspective, allowing for the systemic importance of contrarian views to innovation and education, both management and quality experts were satisfied with this level of support for quality control and assurance, a position that might not be so reassuring from a purely business perspective.

While staff groups expressed some differing views of quality assurance, there was none-the-less a consensus across the staff as a whole. Where staff groups held differing views, leading at times to tensions between groups, the differences were often superficial or even perceptions of difference. The collaborative approach to quality helped to reduce these perceptions of difference and tensions between staff identity groups.

### **4. Quality tools and applications in higher education**

Quality control and assurance in higher education employs policies and procedures to standardize operating practices. There is general agreement that this approach provides clear quality implementation, enforces checks and balances and helps to promote a quality culture among staff. An additional complexity in universities it that these policies and procedures need to be more than a rule book, open to enhancement from internal debate, periodic reviews and external stakeholders. Hence, quality policies and procedures are required to reflect the underlying philosophy of innovation and the overarching framework of university education. This tension between academic and business management perspectives is documented in the literature in Newton's [12] study of the differences between academic and management perspectives and the follow-up study on these differences by Cartwright [13].

A distinctive feature of quality systems in higher education is the reliance on collegiate academic judgment. In this study, 58% of academic staff and 67% of management were highly supportive of the importance of collegiate academic judgment as a technique in academic quality control and assurance. Education is not a one size fits

#### *Quality in Higher Education: Navigating the Academic Business Nexus DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.113989*

all in terms of curriculum and delivery, so needs collegiate academic judgment. This feature of quality systems in higher education differentiates the academic orientation from the business orientation of other actors within the university. Closely related to the above is the identification of critical self-reflection on teaching by academic staff as an important technique in quality management in higher education [14].

Seventy percent of staff surveyed agreed that management monitoring of quantitative outputs is important for university quality control and assurance. The reservation expressed was that management monitoring of quantitative outputs in higher education needs to strike the correct balance between standard business measures and those relevant to quality education.

It is unusual to find universal agreement on quality techniques and applications in higher education. However, in this study there was universal agreement that external examiner monitoring of assessment is important for quality control as a type of safety valve. The external examiner systems for assessment and for programme validation were highlighted as two of the best techniques for quality control, assurance and enhancement.

Similarly, student feedback on programmes is a valuable and valued technique for quality management in universities. Despite the subjective aspect of this measurement, it supports the personal nature of education and the student-centred pedagogical approach. It reflects the importance of the relationship between student and teacher for learning. An interesting paradox in the study was both acknowledging the importance of student feedback and yet seeing it as a problematic area leading to tensions. This paradox exemplifies the business and academic cultures touching off each other. Academics apply student feedback to review and improve their module and provision, while remaining mistrustful of student feedback as an instrument of management monitoring, a blunt instrument of performance management. Nevertheless, 94% of all staff agree that student feedback on assessment is an important measure of quality. Interrogating this level of agreement further, identified a managerial culture that interpreted findings in a very specific and rather narrow, procedural way and different to a more reflective academic culture.

Industry stakeholder feedback was considered important for quality, reflecting a feature of higher education quality that external perceptions and market profile impact heavily on business performance, irrespective of the de facto measures of quality within the university. Understanding this business dynamic, university management were slightly more reserved in their support of industry feedback (88%) as a measure of quality, compared to other staff groups.

An interesting finding that emerged from the study was that the greater the level of staff participation within the quality system, the more critical the staff become towards the quality control and assurance techniques and applications. Perhaps this should not be surprising in a university setting where critical thinking is important and encouraged. Critique may be the price of staff participation. Greater staff participation provides a better understanding of quality techniques and applications among staff. This in turn provides valuable critique for quality enhancement and mitigates against risks of superficial measurement and box ticking.

Management commitment itself is viewed as a key element in establishing a viable quality culture that supports the techniques and applications in the quality system. In the words of one quality manager:

"*If senior management do not walk the talk, in terms of quality assurance and the culture of quality assurance, it does not happen*".

The importance of management commitment to quality may seem obvious from a business perspective and attracted 91% support from staff in this study. However, it is not just an unquestionable affirmation for management, as it also designates responsibility.
