Quality Assurance View of a Management Information System

Abstract

Strategic management has been widely applied in public and private organizations. Strategic management adapts educational institutions to their environment, which includes the educational policy, local demand for labour and other circumstances. The increased autonomy of educational institutions has emphasised the role of strategic management. Quality assurance has also gained more attention in recent years when plans have been made to establish the European Higher Education Area (Berlin Communiqué, 2003). European countries develop their own national solutions for evaluating and demonstrating the quality of degrees (FINHEEC, 2006). There are no European or national agreements that provide any specific approaches or tools for the management of higher education institutions (HEIs) (Maassen & Stensaker, 2003). Each HEI is responsible for defining its management and quality assurance systems. Strategic management is a strong candidate for the management system for Finnish HEIs, but there is more variation in the quality assurance systems. Quality assurance refers to quality management and improvement. Quality is understood as the ability of an institution to fulfill its mission or a study programme to fulfill its aims (Harvey, 2007; Harvey & Green, 1993).