Scenarios of quality assurance of stakeholder relationships in Finnish higher education institutions

Abstract

Although the role and significance of the external stakeholders of higher education institutions has grown in recent years, quality assurance of stakeholder relationships remains a new phenomenon in the management practices of higher education institutions and in higher education research. Based on interviews and expert panel data, this article analyses the internal and external stakeholders' perceptions of scenarios of the quality assurance of stakeholder relationships in Finnish higher education institutions. It especially focuses on exploring how institutions can balance internal and external stakeholders' perspectives with regard to quality assurance. The results show that an essential challenge for Finnish higher education institutions is to develop flexible quality assurance practices capable of balancing the academic goals of the institutions and the needs of the external stakeholders. This also requires seeking balance between the centralised coordination and the differentiated practices of disciplines and academic units inside institutions.

Transformational Leadership, Organizational Culture, Quality Assurance, and Organizational Performance: Case Study in Islamic Higher Education Institutions (Iheis)

“…In contrast to previous research conducted by Marasabessy (2008), Abroza (2015), and Asy'ari (2013), which found evidence that quality assurance affects organizational performance, the findings of this study prove the opposite relationship. Meanwhile, related to the significant relationship between organizational culture and organizational performance both directly and indirectly mediated by quality assurance, this study justifies several previous theories which show that organizational culture is an important predictor of the creation of systems that can encourage high organizational performance (López et al, 2015;Lyytinen et al, 2017;Martin, 2016;Mourad, 2017;Prakash, 2018;Sadler, 2017;Santos and Dias, 2017;Tam, 2001;Yingqiang and Yongjian, 2016).…”

“…Recent literature reviews have explored themes that drive organizational performance, especially HEIs performance such as effective leadership (Alonderiene and Majauskaite, 2016;Awuzie and Emuze, 2017;Spendlove, 2007), organizational culture (Haryono and Arafat, 2017;Ibrahim et al, 2018;Imam et al, 2013), and quality assurance (López et al, 2015;Lyytinen et al, 2017;Martin, 2016;Mourad, 2017;Prakash, 2018;Sadler, 2017;Santos and Dias, 2017;Tam, 2001;Yingqiang and Yongjian, 2016). However, some literature fails to prove that leadership has an influence on performance (Sihombing et al, 2018) and organizational culture (Shiva and Suar, 2012).…”

“…Likewise, in industrial competition, universities experience serious pressure by changes and the competitive nature of the new environment. Besides, dynamic market forces encourage HEIs to continue to adapt to remain relevant and competitive (Gasiûnaitë-Binkienë, 2018;Lyytinen et al, 2017). In this case, Higher Education needs to be more flexible in facing strategic uncertainty (Shawyun, 2016;Tasopoulou and Tsiotras, 2017).…”

Curriculum development and quality work in higher education in Sweden: The external stakeholder perspective

“…Previous research on external stakeholders and their involvement in higher education, especially with regard to governance of higher education institutions and to quality assurance (Beerkens & Udam, 2017;Leisyte & Westerheijden, 2014;Magalhães, Veiga, & Amaral, 2018;Musiał, 2010;Pinheiro, 2015;Rosa & Teixeira, 2014), has often raised concerns about the involvement of external stakeholders in what are mainly seen as internal higher education matters. In fact, there have been calls for quality assurance for stakeholder relationships (Lyytinen et al, 2017), while others have labelled external stakeholders 'Trojan horses' or 'imaginary friends' (Magalhães et al, 2018;Rosa & Teixeira, 2014). However, the voices of external stakeholders are rarely heard in this stream of literature.…”

How stakeholders’ data literacy contributes to student success in higher education: a goal-oriented analysis

“…The salience model, as a typology of stakeholders, offers three attributes to describe the stakeholder-manager relationship (Mitchell et al, 1997). This model is also used in the context of higher education for discussing stakeholder-manager relationships (Lyytinen, Kohtamäki, Kivistö, Pekkola, & Hölttä, 2017;Powell & Walsh, 2018). The challenge of using this model in this study is to adapt it for the research purpose.…”