Final Report Summary - ROLEG-SIG-ACCREDIT (The roles of legitimacy and significance in higher education accreditations)
The overall objective of this project was twofold. In the first two years, the objective was to assess faculty perceptions of European higher education accreditations' legitimacy and significance and the extent to which these perceptions influenced the ways in which accreditations were actually implemented. The original context of the study was that of accreditations linked to the new European Higher Education Area (EHEA). This project involved as well a qualitative study of these accreditations to better understand how faculty experienced them in real time.
The results of my survey research indicated the following:
While the stated aim of quality assessments was to improve the quality of the products and services offered by universities, some faculty viewed them as instrumental in justifying government budget cuts in education. By means of a survey administered to more than 300 faculties from 20 academic programmes undergoing quality assessments, I studied faculty perceptions of the reasons behind the assessments. The results of my analysis show that faculty participation in the assessment process significantly decreases the chances that faculty believe quality assessments are carried out for instrumental reasons. In addition, faculty who believe assessments are carried out for quality improvement reasons are more likely to rate the assessments as legitimate and to be more identified with the academic programme that is being assessed. The study emphasises the significance of faculty attributions about quality assessments and shows that faculty participation is crucial in overcoming initial scepticism towards external interventions.
In addition to the previously mentioned survey research, I carried out a qualitative study on the initial stages of implementation of a new Bachelor of Arts (BA) programme that followed Bologna requirements. The study shows that Bologna reforms are sometimes used by interested actors within universities to pursue changes in programme curriculums that go in line with their own strategic agendas. This is shown by means of a longitudinal in-depth case study of a School where its Dean took advantage of the Bologna reform to pursue a long needed series of curriculum changes to modernise the School and make it more attractive for potential students and recruiters. The study shows that the reforms were carried out in quite a centralised manner, despite the Dean's discourse of participation.
While the first two years of my research focussed on the context of higher education institutions and studied faculty understanding of one particular innovation (i.e. the introduction of quality appraisals), the idea for the next two years was to extend the focus of my study to business firms and to other types of 'management innovations' (i.e. understood as management practices that were new to the organisation adopting them). Although the context for the second study was different from the previous one, the main research interest remained to understand how targets of management innovations in organisations react to those. In particular, the focus for the last two years has been on studying the factors that help the human resources (HR) function gain greater acceptance from employees of their new proposals and innovations.
Based on the sense-making and sense-giving literature, we addressed factors helping the HR function gain greater acceptance by employees for its proposals and innovations. Using an original sample of 298 employees from nine large firms in Spain, we find that HR department credibility is only one of the factors that influences employees' acceptance. Other essential elements are top management and supervisor support. We also investigate the consequences that differential levels of support from supervisors and top managers can have for the acceptance of HR innovations and we find that supervisor support carries more weight than that of top managers. Finally, we explore variations in the importance of the HR function credibility as an acceptance enabler under different organisational innovation climates. The results suggest that HR credibility plays an essential role independently of climate.
The results of my survey research indicated the following:
While the stated aim of quality assessments was to improve the quality of the products and services offered by universities, some faculty viewed them as instrumental in justifying government budget cuts in education. By means of a survey administered to more than 300 faculties from 20 academic programmes undergoing quality assessments, I studied faculty perceptions of the reasons behind the assessments. The results of my analysis show that faculty participation in the assessment process significantly decreases the chances that faculty believe quality assessments are carried out for instrumental reasons. In addition, faculty who believe assessments are carried out for quality improvement reasons are more likely to rate the assessments as legitimate and to be more identified with the academic programme that is being assessed. The study emphasises the significance of faculty attributions about quality assessments and shows that faculty participation is crucial in overcoming initial scepticism towards external interventions.
In addition to the previously mentioned survey research, I carried out a qualitative study on the initial stages of implementation of a new Bachelor of Arts (BA) programme that followed Bologna requirements. The study shows that Bologna reforms are sometimes used by interested actors within universities to pursue changes in programme curriculums that go in line with their own strategic agendas. This is shown by means of a longitudinal in-depth case study of a School where its Dean took advantage of the Bologna reform to pursue a long needed series of curriculum changes to modernise the School and make it more attractive for potential students and recruiters. The study shows that the reforms were carried out in quite a centralised manner, despite the Dean's discourse of participation.
While the first two years of my research focussed on the context of higher education institutions and studied faculty understanding of one particular innovation (i.e. the introduction of quality appraisals), the idea for the next two years was to extend the focus of my study to business firms and to other types of 'management innovations' (i.e. understood as management practices that were new to the organisation adopting them). Although the context for the second study was different from the previous one, the main research interest remained to understand how targets of management innovations in organisations react to those. In particular, the focus for the last two years has been on studying the factors that help the human resources (HR) function gain greater acceptance from employees of their new proposals and innovations.
Based on the sense-making and sense-giving literature, we addressed factors helping the HR function gain greater acceptance by employees for its proposals and innovations. Using an original sample of 298 employees from nine large firms in Spain, we find that HR department credibility is only one of the factors that influences employees' acceptance. Other essential elements are top management and supervisor support. We also investigate the consequences that differential levels of support from supervisors and top managers can have for the acceptance of HR innovations and we find that supervisor support carries more weight than that of top managers. Finally, we explore variations in the importance of the HR function credibility as an acceptance enabler under different organisational innovation climates. The results suggest that HR credibility plays an essential role independently of climate.