Examining Quality Culture Part II: - European University Association

ExAmININg QUALITy CULTUrE PArT II: PrOCESSES ANd TOOLS – PArTICIPATION, OwNErShIP ANd BUrEAUCrACy
for an acceptable compromise. In the second institution, a recognised expert in QA systems developed the
internal arrangements, which acquired legitimacy based on this expertise.
Linked to democratic and participative cultures, the level of trust in the higher education system is
also important and this is partially dependent on whether an open higher education market exists, (i.e., if all
types of providers are allowed to operate without prior approval and are regulated through accreditation).
As Karl Dittrich 4 suggested (personal communication), where the level of trust is high, external QA agencies
view their role as confirming a well-functioning system. In countries where higher education institutions are
distrusted, the sector has to submit to a controlling and intrusive quality assurance culture on the part of
the QA agency. A high level of distrust is partly linked to the existence of shady providers or diploma mills.
Any uncovering of such a provider casts a long shadow across the sector and leads governments to require
controlling and punitive external QA mechanisms regardless.
7.2.2 Bureaucracy
Even without such shady providers, however, QA agencies can show distrust toward the higher
education sector and be intrusive in how they frame their requirements. The role played by the QA agency
and its determination of the level of detail required by internal quality processes can be linked to perceptions
of bureaucracies, particularly since nearly 52% of institutions responding to the EQC survey stated that their
quality concept was based on requirements set by their national QA agency (Loukkola and Zhang 2010:
22). Thus, universities are not immune to a managerial approach to quality if the bureaucratic national
culture leads them there. Extreme cases in the interview sample were represented in two countries where
interviewees characterised the national (and therefore the institutional) bureaucratic culture as focused on
paperwork, and as being inefficient and very hierarchical.
Max Weber, the sociologist who pioneered the study of bureaucracy, describes it as a progressive
step that ensures rational decision-making but he also spoke of the “iron cage” of bureaucracies (loosely
translated by Spencer from the German stahlhartes Gehäuse) when they go too far in rationalising processes
(1994: xvi). Robert Michels spoke of the “iron law of oligarchy” (1915) which can affect even the most
democratic organisations. In their most extreme forms, bureaucracies produce oligarchies and morph into
top-down organisations. They limit human freedom and potential and become segmented by too much
specialisation, resulting in a loss of the sense of community and belonging. Thus, one interviewee stated:
“There are now pedagogical teams but professors are individualistic, defensive and conservative; they do
not want to change and coordination efforts within faculties are difficult to put in place”.
Because bureaucracies are socially constructed, it is also civil society that can deconstruct them, as often
argued by Jürgen Habermas who speaks of the need to have public debates in which all opinions are valued
equally. If the grassroots in universities can be considered as the equivalent of civil society, then deconstruction
of bureaucracy certainly occurred in one of the ten universities, as was discussed in Part IV. It will be recalled
that this university had introduced internal quality arrangements in a top-down, centralised manner:
The first steps that were taken in the university were technocratic: it posted a mandatory on-line
questionnaire (with mandatory publication of results). Colleagues ignored it or were resistant. They
argued that the metrics, the purposes and the use of results were unclear and could not see how it
would help them improve their teaching. Resistance was very tough.
Resistance is not always that open. Thus an interesting study of the implementation of performancebased
funding (PBF) in German medical faculties showed that – contrary to expectations – managers did
not gain ground over academics because senior faculty members oversaw the process and that PBF had to
be approved by the university governance bodies, which “gave traditional professional-collegial procedures
ample opportunities to intervene” (Schulz 2011).
4 Chair, Nederlands-Vlaamse Accreditatieorganisatie (NVAO), the accreditation organisation of the Netherlands and Flanders.
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