David D. Dill

Higher Education Markets and Public Policy.

In the major reforms to higher education being introduced throughout the world, market and “market life” policy instruments are assuming increasing importance. Long perceived as a unique characterstic of the U.S system of higher education, experiments with market competition in academic labor markets, institutional finanace, student support, and the allocation of the resaerch funds are now evident in the higher education policy of many different nations. Ironically, the overt rationale for these reforms is not only the traditional argument of economic effiency—with its supposed corollary benefits of institutional adapation and innovation—but increase a resort to market competition as a means of acheving equity in the form of mass higher education. The paper explores the nature of markets in higher education, the policy mechanisms related to their implementation, and some emerging questions regarding their impact.

The management of academic culture: Notes on the management of meaning and social integration

This article is concerned with the management of the symbolic life of academic organizations, an area strangely neglected in discussions of academic management. The adoption by higher education of the techniques of market-based businesses comes at a time when these businesses are being criticized for lack of attention to organizational culture. Academic institutions may best be understood as value-rational organizations grounded in strong cultures described as ideologies and belief systems. Some thoughts on the management of academic culture, on the management of meaning and social integration, are developed.

Academic accountability and university adaptation: The architecture of an academic learning organization

Over the last decade universities have been subjected to various forms of academic accountability designed to maintain or improve the quality of their teaching and learning. A shared perspective of many of these accountability processes is that universities should become skilled at creating knowledge for the improvement of teaching and learning, and at modifying their behavior to reflect this new knowledge. In short, that universities should become “learning organizations.” What are the organizational characteristics of an academic learning organization? The paper will address this question by reviewing the adaptations in organizational structure and governance reported by universities attempting to improve the quality of their teaching and learning processes.

Designing Academic Audit: Lessons Learned in Europe and Asia.

As growing numbers of countries adopt market-oriented policies for steering higher education, there is increasing interest in accountability mechanisms that improve the capacity of colleges and universities to independently assure the quality of their academic degrees and student learning. Academic audit, first developed in the UK and subsequently adapted to countries such as Sweden, New Zealand and Hong Kong, offers such an approach. What problems have these countries encountered in implementing academic audits with regard to: the focus of audits; the selection and training of audit teams; the nature of audit self-studies; the conduct of audit visits; audit reports; and audit follow-up and enhancement activities? This paper reviews the lessons learned from these early experiments with academic audit and suggests guidelines for the design and implementation of effective audit processes.

University-Industry Entrepreneurship: The Organization and Management of American University Technology Transfer Units.

Mechanisms for increasing technology transfer between universities and industry have proliferated rapidly in the United States as institutions of higher education have become much more entrepreneurial. The economic implications of these activities have received substantial attention and the sociological aspects of this process have been vigorously debated (e.g. the effect of university-industry relationships on academic integrity). Much less consideration has been given to the successful organization and management of these emerging university ‘service’ units. The study presents results of a national survey of the organization, management, and perceived performance effectiveness of university technology transfer units. Units studied included: licensing and patenting offices (units seeking commercial applications for university research); small business development centers (units providing technical or managerial assistance to entrepreneurs or small businesses); research and technology centers (units operating or participating in facilities for the development of new technology); incubators (units managing facilities in support of new technology-based businesses); and investment/endowment offices (units utilizing the universitys financial resources for equity in start-up businesses). The implications of the research for university management and government policy are explored.

Transparency and Quality in Higher Education Markets

Since applicants are generally hard-put to know just how much they are really learning, let alone how much they can expect to learn at a school they have never seen, they do not make enlightened choices. They rarely possess either the time or the information to explore all the promising options available to them and usually have only a limited basis for comparing the options they do consider. Under these conditions, competition does not necessarily cause good instruction to drive out bad. Instead, students often flock to courses with superficial appeal or to institutions with established reputations even though the education they receive is only mediocre.... [C]ompetition does not inspire universities or their faculties to do as much as they might to improve their instruction in the way that it forces computer companies to work at improving their products (Bok, 2003, pp. 161-162).

Through Deming's Eyes: a cross‐national analysis of quality assurance policies in higher education

Abstract Efforts to improve the quality of academic programmes in the US, the UK, and the Netherlands have followed three general approaches: the logic of competitive markets, the application of incentives, and the process of professional self‐regulation. The first two approaches have been much influenced by the field of information economics, particularly the concept of insufficient information and the principal‐agent model. Professional self‐regulation has relied on the critical assumption of the existence of cohesion in academic disciplines and fields. The strengths and weaknesses of these three approaches for improving academic quality are critiqued through the lens of the work of W. Edwards Deming, a leading American thinker on quality management. The analysis suggests that quality assurance policies will likely make the most important contribution by fostering the development of ‘social capital’, both within and between academic institutions. How this might be accomplished is explored through an exa...

Accreditation & Academic Quality Assurance: Can We Get There from Here?.

A well-known New England story has a city resident braking his car to a halt in front of a Maine farmhouse and calling out to the farmer sitting on the porch: “Which way to East Millinocket?” The farmer ponders: “Well, ya turn left by the fire station in the village and take the old post road by the reservoir and ..., no, that won’t do. Best to continue straight on by the tar road until you reach the school house and then turn left on the road to Bennett’s Lake until..., no, that won’t work either. East Millinocket, ya say. Come to think of it, you can’t get there from here!” For those still convinced that there is a need to improve the quality of teaching and learning in US colleges and universities, the recent rejection by the higher education community of the National Policy Board on Higher Education Institutional Accreditation’s (NPB) proposals to link the standards of voluntary accreditation to measurable improvements in student achievement suggests a similar dilemma. Which way to quality assurance in higher education? In reviewing the failed attempt to reform academic accreditation, it appears that we can’t get there from here. Part of the problem was that the NPB was unable to effectively articulate the inadequacies of the current process and standards of academic accreditation, and convincingly suggest how accreditation could be improved so as to clearly demonstrate to the public that institutions of higher education are responsibly assuring the quality of their academic programs and degrees. Another part of the problem is that the debate about accreditation and academic quality in the United States has been a remarkably insulated discussion, which has disregarded viable alternatives for improving quality assurance in higher education. In particular, those involved in the US accreditation movement have generally ignored quality assurance developments in higher education in other parts of the world, which may offer useful and established models for improving our own processes (Westerheijden, Brennan, Maassen, 1994).

Capacity Building as an Instrument of Institutional Reform: Improving the Quality of Higher Education through Academic Audits in the UK, New Zealand, Sweden, and Hong Kong

Abstract As countries convert from state to market‐centered public policies, there is increasing interest in new forms of public accountability. Capacity building initiatives that reform institutional frameworks are useful policy instruments during this period of transition. What are the impacts and implementation problems characteristic of this approach? This article reviews the experience with “Academic Audit,” a capacity building accountability instrument for universities adopted in the UK, Sweden, New Zealand, and Hong Kong. Academic audits altered the incentives for cooperative behavior among faculty members to improve student learning. Identified implementation problems included: training for the new process, the uncertainty of capacity building benefits, and the central role of information.

Public Policy for Academic Quality

This volume summarizes a significant body of research systematically analyzing innovative external quality assurance policies in higher education around the world. It will be essential reading for policy makers, administrators and researchers alike. Over the last decade the structure of higher education in most countries has undergone significant change. This change, brought about by social demands for expanded access, technological developments, and market forces, has seen the traditional concerns with access and cost supplemented by a fresh concern with academic quality. As a result new public policies on academic quality assurance have rapidly emerged and migrated around the globe. However, the public debate about new academic quality assurance policies, both within and across countries, has not always been informed by reliable analyses of the strengths and weaknesses of these innovative instruments. It is this gap that the current edited volume seeks to fill. It is based on the work of the Public Policy for Academic Quality research program (PPAQ), which was designed to provide systematic analyses of innovative external quality assurance policies around the world. This volume, informed by key international scholars, presents the fourteen analyses conducted as part of the PPAQ research program. Each analysis examines the policy goals, implementation problems, and impacts of these newly developed national quality assurance instruments. The book concludes with an assessment of the lessons learned from these collected policy analyses and outlines the framework conditions that appear essential for assuring academic standards in the university sector.