Muutoksen mestarit - HAAGA-HELIA ammattikorkeakoulu

Improving Quality with an International Partner
The meaning for the term quality has developed
over time. According to ISO 9000, it is “The Degree
to which a set of inherent characteristic fulfils requirements”.
Both philosophy and common sense
tend to see quality as related either to subjective
feelings or to objective facts. Quality can also refer
to the meaning of excellence itself. Total Quality
Management (TQM) is a management strategy that
aims at embedding an awareness of quality in all organizational
processes.
Benchmarking can be defined as a process used in
organizations in order to evaluate various aspects
of their processes in relation to best practices.
According to EFQM, it is “The process of systematically
and continuously comparing an
organization’s strategies, processes and performance
against business leaders to gain information
that will help the organization to
achieve business excellence”.
Quality assurance has been one of HAAGA-
HELIA’s focus areas as well as a means to find
and define strategic partners among our 180
international partner institutions in order toenhance
international co-operation with them.
We combined these two in a benchmarking
project.
HAAGA-HELIA University of Applied Sciences
in Helsinki (HH) proposed a benchmarking
project with the International Business
School in Hanze University Groningen (IBS),
Netherlands in spring 2006. IBS Groningen was
very enthusiastic about this offer and it was agreed
that this benchmarking project would aim at comparing
both institutions with a focus on good practices
and interesting developments for the future.
Benchmarking at an international level was new for
both IBS Groningen and HAAGA-HELIA.
TEXT ANNE PERKIÖ
The aims of this benchmarking project were to improve
networking, collaborative relationships and
mutual understanding between the two participants.
Additional goals were to collect benchmark information
- in the form of texts and numerical or graphical
information about the area of study such as evaluative
reports, guidelines, specifications, how-to-do-it
workbooks, specifications and codes of best practice,
exemplars of good or different practices and statistics.
Furthermore, it targeted at a better understanding of
practices, processes or performance and insights into
how improvements might be made. This understanding
can be retained amongst the participants, e.g. in
order to gain or maintain competitive advantage, or
it can be disseminated more widely through conferences,
workshops and publications, etc.
The IBS had developed an extensive instrument for
benchmarking and for its qualitative analysis, and
based this instrument on assessment criteria of
the following systems:
• NVAO – The Netherlands-Flemish Accreditation
Organisation
• EFQM – The European Foundation for Quality
Management
• EQUIS – The European Quality Improvement
System
The criteria of the NVAO, EFQM and EQUIS
were placed in a spreadsheet and the benchmark
issues or themes which were of particular
interest to both HAAGA-HELIA and IBS were
highlighted. For three important issues, specific
checklists were made. These checklists
were Programme / Courses, Connections with
the corporate world and Student Placements
+Personal Development.
The project started with desk study where each of
the institutions analyzed their own curriculum and
compared it to the curriculum of the other in order
to generate topics for the discussions in the meetings
of personnel. The Curriculum Matrix used for this
comparison showed that the International Business
Programmes in both institutions had a lot in common.
The need for such education arises from the
international business world. The objectives of the
programmes shared the idea of an education that
corresponds to the demands of the rapidly and continously
changing business environment and preparing
professionals for the global workplace. Core competences
were more clearly defined in IBS, but the same
ideology was also adopted by HH. The structures of
studies were somewhat different. In teaching methods,
the International Business Programme (IB) in HH
is based on Problem Based Learning (PBL). Projectbased
courses are utilized in both institutions.
The reciprocal visits took place in Groningen in May
2006 and in Helsinki in November 2006. These visits
included two days with a very intensive schedule. The
agenda included presentations, classroom observations,
meetings with the teachers in the same competence
area and group discussions.
The findings of this benchmark study show that curricula
of both institutes are more or less similar, but
there are minor differences in professional studies.
For example, it was noted that in social responsibility
studies, IBS Hanze has a broader concept in this
field. HAAGA-HELIA has a semester set up which enables
the opportunity to integrate the corporate world
better, handle different topics in one course and link
skills training to actual real-life situations in the curriculum.
The problem Based Learning at HH has been
carried out further than at IBS. IBS can learn from the
structured way it is used and also how it is supported
by the course material on Blackboard. HH is also utilizing
e-learning much more than IBS. Thus, in conclusion
it can be stated that despite the fact that parts
of the curricula are not
comparable, there are
many similarities in each
school’s approach.
HH has close contacts
with the business community
and it is a key
player in Finland as it
is located in the capital.
IBS would like to
learn more about HH
entrepreneurship programmes
as well as the
“business incubator”
which is both promoting
and researching entrepreneurship.
IBS also
displayed interest in
partnering in research
projects.
There are numerous
similarities in the programmes
when comparing
exchange periods
and work placements;
the major difference is
that Finnish students can do the placement in Finland,
in IBS the Dutch students have to go abroad. It seems
that HH has to do some improvements in quality control
procedures in the exchange and placement programmes
compared to IBS. The placement process of
IBS is better organized.
The new sales programme starting in HH in August
2007, was very interesting to IBS. Some partly joint
development might be conducted with it at a later
stage.
Concerning possibilities for future cooperation between
HH and IBS, the following issues were discussed:
student and teacher exchanges and the possibility
to develop a double degree programme, market
penetration projects that would interest companies
operating in Finland and Holland, Research cooperation
projects such as an “business incubator”, online
learning cooperation projects which would include
implementing courses together, joint development,
HH offering PBL training sessions at IBS and conducting
a benchmarking round up.
Overall, the benchmarking process is very important
for both institutes, and especially for IBS, which is applying
for EQUIS accreditation.
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