A New Strategy for Higher Education Institutions: the deming management method

Περίληψη

The quality message has dominated corporate thinking worldwide. The impressive attention to quality led to the development of the Japanese Deming Award, the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (with applications in education) in USA, the European Quality Award (with application in education) and a great number of National Quality Awards (with application in education). Also, an increasing number of private and public organizations around the world, including educational organizations, are now obtaining certification in ISO 9000, QS-9000, and ISO 14001- environmental standards (Hunt, 1993; Oakland, 1999; Joiner, 1994). According to Wilkinson, Redman, Snape and Marchington (1998), quality management and quality improvement practices are increasingly being adopted both in the USA and in Europe, because they can add value to an organization's competitive strategy. Organizations which have implemented quality management and quality improvement practices did improve corporate performance, and in particular, improved quality of products/services, customer satisfaction and employee relations, and decreased costs at the same time (General Accounting Office, 1991; Hiam, 1993; Mohrman, Tenkasi, Lawler, and Ledford, 1995; Powell, 1995; Cruise and Voss, 1992; Witcher, 1993; Witcher and Whyte, 1992;). The Deming Management Method, which is a quality management method, has caused several significant changes in American, Japanese and European management practices applied in both profit and nonprofit sectors (multinational corporations, manufacturing plants, military industry, and services such as health, education, banking and insurance, and small businesses). Deming (1986) believed that "transformation is required in government, industry, and education" (p. 14). Higher education institutions have been described as organized anarchies with unclear goals (Cohen and March, 1984). Many authors found that management systems derived from the business sector, such as strategic planning and entrepreneurial leadership could be offered as solutions to the problems the higher education institutions face (Keller, 1983; Tierney, 1988; Peck, 1983). Deming (1986) advocated that his method applies to service organizations including education.