Authentic academic quality: Reconciling organisational culture and external quality assurance - Dhansagran Naidoo

Authentic academic quality: Reconciling organisational culture and external quality assurance - Dhansagran Naidoo

• 1.
  Authentic academic quality Reconcilingorganisational culture and external quality assurance
• 2.
  Authentic academic quality: Reconcilingorganisational culture and external quality assurance. Paper presented OECD IMHE General Conference 17-19 September 2012, Paris Dr Dhaya Naidoo Prof N Themba Mosia
• 3.
  EQA and organisationalculture assumptions EQA Improved HE quality OC
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  Traditional notions oforganisational culture • Homogenous, unitary and centred around shared values and could therefore easily be manipulated (usually from the top by management) • An organisational culture that is amenable to change would be more receptive to the introduction of formal internal and external quality-assurance structures, systems and instruments,
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  Taken-for-granted assumptions ofEQA • EQA unproblematic technology accepted without question by higher education institutions (HEI) • Premised upon the laudable aim of improving the quality of those institutions. • Motivated by a public-good rationale to improve the quality of those institutions • Multiple beneficiaries • Peer-driven, objective assessment of the institutions’ quality arrangements
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  Analysis • Philosophical,conceptual and methodological controversies and contestations surrounding both constructs • A three-dimensional model, Tierney (1988) cultural framework, modified cultures of the academy of Bergquist and Pawlak (2007) and adapted four sociological perspectives of Burrell and Morgan (1979) underpinned analysis
• 7.
  Emerging views oforganisational culture • Multiple cultures exists simultaneously • Managerial • Collegial • Political • Transformational • Fluid membership • Driven by issues rather than demographic or occupational categories
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  Multiple roles ofEQA • EQA as an agent of: • Control • Empowerment • Transformation • State • All four roles exist explicitly and tacitly
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  Organisational culture andexternal quality assurance Managerial culture Transformative Political Culture culture Control Collegial culture Empowerment Transformation State
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  Conclusions • Organisation culturesephemeral than concrete, multidimensional than singular, characterised simultaneously by conflict, consensus and indifference and in a constant state of flux • EQA multi-dimensional with several layers of stated and unstated intents despite being championed by a democratising and public-good rhetoric • Fundamental and enduring change in higher education is largely contingent on the elevation of a transformative organisational culture and the transformation agenda of external quality assurance.