Content area
Full Text
Keywords
European Foundation for Quality Management, Universities, Self assessment, Public sector organizations
Abstract
Owing to pressures from a range of stakeholders for a wider and improved range of services from the Higher Education (HE) sector in the UK, linked with a simultaneously increasing pressure on resource utilisation, universities are currently facing the challenges of reorienting their approaches to be more customer-focused and conducting their activities in a more business-like manner. A consortium of UK universities is currently implementing the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) excellence model as a means for addressing these issues. The focus of this paper is the implementation of EFQM excellence model self-assessment in the UK HE sector. This paper describes the specific issues in implementing the model in UK HE, with a particular focus on the choice of self-assessment methodology, and compares and contrasts these with self-assessment issues in the wider public sector. The early signs are that EFQM excellence model self-assessment can help to produce a more customer-oriented culture in HE institutions, providing that the lessons learned from the wider public sector are put into practice.
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Introduction
The European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) excellence model has been in use for 12 years. Initially, it was mainly implemented by "industrial" organisations. These organisations have currently built up much experience in the issues to be addressed when aiming for successful implementation of the model. In recent years, there has been a surge of interest in the model from a variety of public sector organisations resulting in the EFQM developing a version of the model for the public sector.
Owing to pressures from a range of stakeholders (e.g. government, students and local communities) for a wider and improved range of services from the Higher Education (HE) sector in the UK, linked with a simultaneously increasing pressure on resource utilisation, universities are currently facing the challenges of reorienting their approaches to be more customer-focussed and conducting their activities in a more business-like manner. A consortium of UK Universities is currently implementing EFQM excellence model self-assessment as a means for addressing these issues.
The aim...