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This article, using the example of Ukraine, aims to explore the time allocation of academics at university in a semi-peripheral state sustaining means–ends decoupling. Data emanate from the responses of 205 academics in business studies. The analysis uses degrees (qualifications) and gender as main categorizations. Findings indicate that means–ends decoupling at the state and university levels hinders academics from allocating their time to activities prescribed by the research university model, specifically, research and service.

Employing the Twenty Statements Test and a framework of self-motives (self-esteem, self-efficacy, authenticity), this paper examines the self-concept of Ukrainian doctoral students while means-ends decoupling takes place at the state level. The latter implies that the practices of state policies are disconnected from the state's core goal of creating public welfare. Data are taken from a survey of 125 doctoral students at one Ukrainian university and supplemented with 30 personal interviews within the sample of respondents. The findings reveal that in the Ukrainian case, means-ends decoupling at the state level causes institutional complexity, which results in means-ends decoupling at the organisational level, which in turn leads to cultural complexity. Institutional and cultural complexities experienced by doctoral students trigger them to sustain means-ends decoupling at the individual level. The main decoupling for most Ukrainian PhD students is that doctoral education neither increases their employability nor contributes to the development of science, economy or society. Means-ends decoupling at all levels results not only in a severe diversion of financial and human capital but also has a negative impact on individuals' well-being, hindering their personal and professional development and evoking a sense of meaning-lessness, alienation and cognitive dissonance.

The article is based on a study conducted among students in selected Ghanaian universities in the year 2015 to confirm the continued maintenance (or improvement) of the minimum quality standards, based on which accreditation had been granted to their respective institutions. Although the students might not have been conversant with the accrediting agency’s standards, these requirements were provided as possible answers from which the students were to select appropriate and unbiased responses, based on their observations. These indicators related to curriculum, student assessment policies, student assessment of course content and teaching (SACT), policy on ethics, student/staff ratios, physical facilities and library provisions. The responses from both public and private university students confirmed varying degrees of conformity and, or compliance with the Ghanaian accrediting agency’s standards by the universities under its regulation.

Among pioneering European countries who started to establish a formal higher education quality assurance system in the 1980s, the Netherlands adopted one based on peer review and quality enhancement, which was replaced in 2003 by an accountability-oriented accreditation system under the substantial influence of the Bologna Process. Recently, the emphasis is being put on institutional audit to restore a culture of quality within higher education institutions. This article addresses the question of what the higher education worldwide can learn from the evolution of Dutch quality assurance policy concerning control, the balance between accountability and quality improvement and trust. Finally, recent adaptations to the current, third, round of accreditation are also addressed in this context.

The idea of the research university as a key institution for social and economic development in knowledge-intensive societies has been adopted by the Ukrainian government after the fall of the communist regime. Establishing research universities is a long journey during which many things might happen. To understand this journey better in the case of Ukrainian research universities, we applied an analytical framework derived from the concept of travel and translation of ideas. This concept analyses reform through three types of editing rules: the rules of context, logic and formulation. These editing rules have guided our analysis of data gathered from policy documents complemented by face-to-face interviews. We conclude that the idea as introduced came to little, as the turbulent political context precluded long-term planning and universities were faced with conflicting policies.

The growing popularity of the concept of world-class universities raises the question of whether investing in such universities is a worthwhile use of public resources. Does concentrating public resources on the most excellent universities improve the overall quality of a higher education system, especially if definitions of excellence and world-class are made by external ranking organizations? This paper addresses that question by developing a framework for weighing up trade-offs between institutional and system performance, focusing on the potential system-wide improvements which world-class university programmes (WCUPs) may bring. Because WCUPs are in a relatively early stage of their development, systemic effects are not yet clear. We therefore analyse the ex ante reasons that policy makers have for adopting WCUPs to see if they at least seek to create these systemic benefits

The emergence and development of quality assurance schemes in European countries over the last 15–20 years has inspired many national case studies of the systems and procedures adopted. The methods, contexts, and procedures associated with this policy change are diverse. But although individual countries have set about changing policy in different ways there appear to be some common developmental patterns within the Europe of the Bologna Process. How can these developments be conceptualised? In a first step this paper advances a typology based on the quality assurance literature. In a second step, the paper applies the typology to quality assurance developments in three countries. The third part of the paper discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the modelling approach in the light of the empirical evidence and a political science analysis of policy change. The paper concludes with a discussion on future directions for the comparative study of policy change within the European Higher Education Area on the basis of this conceptualisation of developments in quality assurance policy.

How are stakeholders represented in higher education institutions’ decision-making bodies that influence the quality of education, and are their viewpoints taken into account? This paper addresses this question taking into account the empirical evidence from eight countries in Europe. Findings indicate that formal barriers are largely absent, that stakeholder influence has grown somewhat over recent years, but that actual influence of stakeholders can be further optimised in higher education institutions.

In the absence of any national quality performance monitoring system (until 2006) 8 of 21 Greek public universities voluntarily participated in the European University Association Institutional Evaluation Programme (EUA-IEP). Empirical data were collected through documents (eight evaluators’ reports). This article uses qualitative content analysis to understand the relationships between neo-institutional pressures (coercive, normative and mimetic) and university characteristics that influenced the choice for the EUA-IEP. Normative and mimetic pressures were detected through these reports. Coercive pressure did not play a role in the decision to invite the EUA-IEP. Different types of universities engaged in the EUA-IEP but not monothematic and ‘Athenian’ universities.

The emergence of the European Standards and Guidelines (ESG) for Quality Assurance has been seen as an important step towards realising the European Higher Education Area by creating more transparency and accountability in the area of quality assurance. The ESG also include standards as to how quality assurance agencies should be reviewed. In a meta-analysis of the reviews undertaken of quality assurance agencies, this article explores to what extent the ESG is having an impact on the reviews.

PurposeQuality management in Greek higher education at least until 2006 was in an early and debated stage. The intent of this paper is to present the extent of use of the ISO standards in Greek universities till 2006 and simultaneously to evaluate whether adoption of ISO‐oriented quality management tools is consistent with DiMaggio and Powell's notions of isomorphism (coercive, normative, and mimetic).Design/methodology/approachThe authors employed a mixed‐methods approach with sequential data collection with several alternations between quantitative and qualitative methods.FindingsIt is found that ISO‐oriented quality management system is fruitfully adopted in units only if all three types of neo‐institutional pressures (coercive, normative and mimetic) are present. These results and the high response rate suggest that there is a quality movement at the micro level in Greek higher education.Research limitations/implicationsQuality management (QM) research within the relatively uncharted Greek universities poses multiple challenges, e.g. in handling politically sensitive subjects, which may benefit readers in overcoming theirs.Originality/valueThe significance of the paper lies in the fact that no existing studies have investigated the adoption of ISO‐oriented quality management system in Greek universities, utilizing neo‐institutional theory and a mixed method research design. Especially relevant is that the study focuses on quality management at the micro level of units within higher education institutions. The study demonstrates how to distinguish different isomorphic pressures empirically.

The article analyses the role of peer review within broader external quality assurance schemes. Based on an analytical framework emphasising that modern quality assurance schemes are designed as a balancing act between standardised guidelines and professional judgement, the article uses data from a recent evaluation of NOKUT, the Norwegian Quality Assurance Agency, to investigate whether and how the peer review process has maintained its central role in quality assurance, not least with respect to promoting excellence and diversity. The findings indicate that what is presented as judgements based on peer expertise, turn out to be a rather technical process in which pre-defined rigid criteria and standards are imperative. In the conclusion, the role of peer review is discussed in relation to developments in European higher education.

This paper looks at the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) as an important part of the international trade law system and explores if and how it affects the steering capacity of a nation state regarding higher education. It offers a new conceptual framework to look on the impact of GATS on higher education within its increasingly complex environment by distinguishing between the 'static' dimension (GATS' rules and disciplines) and the 'dynamic' dimension (stakeholders' standpoints, views and actions). Furthermore, by comparing two case studies conducted in the Czech Republic and the Netherlands, it connects the theoretical framework on GATS and the steering capacity of a nation state with specific national conditions and complements case studies that have been so far carried out in other countries. We concluded that neither through the static dimension nor through the dynamic, was the steering capacity in the two cases affected directly: nation states remain the prime actors regarding higher education. Nevertheless, exercising their power over higher education has become more complex and nation states must take more consequences of their internal policy choices into account, which may be difficult to predict.

Attention shifted in recent years from design and implementation to use and usefulness of quality assurance. Scientific studies focus increasingly on quality assurance’s impact on curricula and individual teachers. Which factors influence follow‐up activities and what is their relation to improvement of education? One factor that we single out is teachers’ experience of quality assurance and how that influences the climate for quality work in higher education institutions, against the backdrop of the social context in which quality assurance was introduced. The article critically analyses a number of studies on the topic.

The link between internationalisation and quality assurance used to be missing. In this paper, we wish to show why and how this link is being established in recent years by looking at developments that suggest convergence between the two. We emphasise the implications of wider international developments on Europe as a whole. Implications of the Bologna Declaration for quality assurance are elaborated. Finally, we mention a number of unresolved issues that require further research.

Transparency in higher education is one of the aims of the Bologna Declaration (1999). In a number of countries in Europe, this led to processes to change quality assurance into accreditation, which supposedly results in more transparency. Are there lessons to be learnt from experiences in Central and Eastern Europe regarding accreditation since 1990? I maintain that the character of those 'first generation' accreditation systems is more exclusively academic and drives towards uniformity more than the multifaceted systems needed for Bologna's 'second generation' requirements. A 'multiple accreditation system' would answer these requirements better. Some principles of a multiple accreditation system are presented, together with consequences for external evaluation criteria and procedures. Two nascent accreditation system designs in Western European countries (Germany and the Netherlands) are then compared with the demands set by the Bologna Declaration and with the design principles of a multiple accredita...

The author reviews developments in publications on quality assurance of education in (European) higher education over the last decade. The metaphor of sub-atomic structure is used to order the literature in types ('shells') of similar publications, moving from those closely related with the practice of quality assurance methods to more theoretical publications. Some seminal publications are highlighted as 'quantum jumps'. The article ends by noting some recent trends in quality assurance at the system and institutional levels, as well as mentioning theoretically interesting developments, notably the emergence of neo-institutional approaches.

To gain insight into the use of the VSNU research quality evaluations (since 1993) in the practice of research and of institutional management in Dutch universities, interviews were held in eight cases evaluated in the first year of this procedure. The main conclusions are that use of these research evaluations is universal, both ’instrumentally‘ (in decisions directly based on the judgements) and ’incrementally‘ (in decision-making processes not directly linked to the evaluation). Underlying this is ’conceptual use‘: an important change in deans‘ and rectors‘ views of their role in managing research, which they now can realise, because the VSNU research evaluations give them, for the first time, solidly legitimate arguments on which to base strategic decisions. Next to use, other effects can be discerned within universities, pointing to a growing dependency of researchers on managers, necessitating amongst others ever more consciously strategic publication behaviour. Whether quality of research improves in this way, cannot be answered here, but certainly it is more difficult for academics not to engage in research.

In this article a number of elements of a general model of quality assessment in higher education are presented. On the one hand these elements are put in a historical context of quality assessment in Medieval universities and, on the other hand, deduced from the recent experiences with quality assessment in both North-American and Western European countries. With respect to the historical context a distinction is made between the intrinsic and the extrinsic values of higher education. Two types of quality assessment related to these values are also distinguished. Concerning the recent experiences with quality assessment systems, the practices in the U.S.A., Canada, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom are explored. In the final section the general mode of quality assessment is discussed in the context of the distinction between the intrinsic and the extrinsic values of higher education.

The role of PIs at the national level in European countries appears to be on the decline at the same time that institutions are moving toward more broad-based quality assessment strategies.

Rankings and league tables, or Report Cards (RCs), of Higher Education Institutions have become a global phenomenon. Their purpose, it is claimed, is to help‘student-consumers’ make informed decisions. Yet the degree to which RCs succeed in helping students in their college choice is disputed. Even though RCs are intended for all, which information is sought and how it is used may differ between potential students hailing from different social, economic and cultural backgrounds. In particular, RCs may neglect certain cultural determinants that influence students’ college choice behaviour. The article reviews the literature on the cultural determinants of college choice and especially the use of RCs in the ambit of cultural determinants. In the United States, possibly because of evident educational gaps between ethnic groups in society, the issue of cultural perceptions in college choice has been addressed, albeit scantly. In Europe, this field of study is virtually non-existent, despite increasing indications that second and third generation immigrants still lag behind in terms of higher education participation and graduation rates.