Leadership (and Management) for Quality: An Institutional Theory Perspective

1. Leadership (and Management) for Quality: An Institutional Theory Perspective on Educational Organisations Yiouli Papadiamantaki IP Learning for Leadership in Education. Corinth, 29/6 - 12/7/2014

2. Institutional Theory Throughout the history of social science has existed a tension between those theorists who emphasize structural and cultural constraints on action and those who emphasize the ability of the individual actors to make a difference in the flow of events. This is an issue of interest when we examine how leaders take action with a view to create, maintain and transform institutions and organisations, striving at the same time to implement policies. Let us start by defining institutions. Institutions • Are social structures that have attained a high degree of resilience • Are composed of regulative, normative and cultural cognitive elements that together with associated activities and resources provide stability and meaning to social life • Operate at multiple levels of jurisdiction from the world system to localised interpersonal relationships • By definition connote stability but are subject to change, both incremental and discontinuous.

3. Institutional Theory So institutions are by definition the more enduring features of social life giving solidity to social systems across time and space. They exhibit these properties because of the processes set in motion by regulative, normative and cultural cognitive elements. These are the building blocks of institutional structures providing the elastic fibres that resist change. The three elements form a continuum moving from the conscious to the unconscious, from the legally enforced to the taken for granted. Although rules, norms and cultural beliefs area central ingredients of institutions the concept must also encompass associated behaviour and material resources. And although an institutional perspective gives heightened attention to the symbolic aspects of social life, we must also attend to the activities that produce and reproduce them. Rules, norms and meanings arise in interaction and are preserved and modified by human behaviour. Early institutionalist theories tended to emphasize the ways in which institutional mechanisms constrained organisational structures and activities.

4. Institutional Theory The Regulative Pillar: Comprises explicit regulatory processes, such as rule-setting, monitoring, and sanctioning activities. The involve the capacity to establish rules, inspect other’s conformity to them and manipulate sanctions-rewards or punishments. They may operate through diffuse informal mechanisms (shaming) or maybe highly formalised and assigned to specialized actors. The Normative Pillar: Includes both values and norms. Values are conceptions of the preferred or the desirable together with the construction of standards to which existing structures or behaviours can be compared and assessed. Norms specify how things should be done. They define legitimate means to pursue valued ends. Normative systems define goals or objectives. The Cultural-Cognitive Pillar: includes the shared conceptions that constitute the nature of social reality and the frames through which meaning is made. Every human institution is a crystallization of meanings in objective form. The hyphenated label, recognized that internal interpretative processes are shaped by external cultural frameworks.

5. Structuration Theory However recent work gives more attention to the ways in which both individuals and organisations innovate, act strategically and contribute to institutional change. For example the work of Anthony Giddens on“structuration”has provided a framework for examining the interplay between freedom and constraint, treating them as interrelated processesStructurationis the term coined by Giddens to remind us that social structures exist only exist as patterned social activities incorporating rules and resources that are reproduced over time. Giddens envisions the “duality of social structure” recognizing it to be both product and platform of social action. Individual actors carry out practices that are simultaneously constrained and empowered by existing social structures. Social structures are made up of rules “generalized procedures applied in the enactment/reproduction of social life” and resources that can be “used to enhance or maintain power”. Institutions are those types of social structures that involve more strongly held rules supported by more entrenched resources. Institutional practices are those deeply embedded in time and space.

6. Agency Structuration theory views actors as creating and following rules and using resources as they engage in the on going production and reproduction of social structures. Actors are viewed as both knowledgeable and reflexive, capable of understanding and taking account of everyday situations and of routinely monitoring the results of their own and others’ actions. Agency refers to an actor’s ability to have some effect on the social world, altering the rules or the distribution of resources. The presence of agency presumes a nondeterminant, voluntaristic theory of action. To be able to “act otherwise”means being able to intervene in the world, or to refrain from such intervention, with the effect of influencing a specific process or state of affairs. All actors (individual and collective) possess some degree of agency, but the amount of agency varies greatly among actors as well as among types of social structure. Agency itself is socially constructed.

7. Agency The basic theoretical premise underlying the concept of agency is aligned with phenomenological assumptions. Between the context and the response is the interpreting actor. Agency resides in the interpretive process, whereby choices are imagined, evaluated and reconstructed by actors in on going dialogue with unfolding situations. Structuration theory joins with other theoretical arguments to support a more proactive role for individual and organizational actors, as well as a more interactive and reciprocal view of institutional processes. Behaviour oriented to and governed by rules need not be automatic or “unreasonable”, as rules must be both selected, interpreted (often more than one rule may be applicable) and/or adapted to the demands of the particular situation. Increasingly theorists recognize the extent to which organizational participants do not always conform to conventional patterns but respond variably, sometimes creating new ways of acting and organizing.

8. Institutions and Organisations Although institutions were identified and analysed relatively early by social scientists, organisations as distinctive types and social forms did not become a focus of study until the 1940’s. In every organisation we may discern 4 main building blocks

9. Institutions and Organisations Organisations are open systems that interact with their environment The organisational environment of organisations comprises a multitude of levels ranging from the global/regional to the societal to the Organisational field level.

10. What the hell is “Quality” ? We all have an intuitive understanding of what quality means but it is sometimes difficult to articulate and describe it. Quality is a contested and value-laden issue and there are widely different conceptualisations of quality in use Quality is relative to the user of the terms and the circumstances it is invoked. It means different things to different people. • Quality as “Exceptional” or as “Perfection” (“Excellence”) • Quality as “Fitness for Purpose” • Quality as “Value for Money” • Quality as “Transformation”

11. Quality as “Exceptional” or “Perfection” I The exceptional notion of quality takes as axiomatic that quality is something special. There are three variations of this. • Traditional Notion of Quality: The traditional notion of quality implies exclusivity and has been associated with the notion of distinctiveness, of something special or 'high class’. It does not offer benchmarks against which to measure quality and its nature is “apodeictic”. • Excellence 1(Exceeding high standards) : Excellence 1 sees quality in terms of 'high' standards It is similar to the traditional view but eschews the apodictic nature of the traditional notion and identifies what the components of excellence are, while at the same time ensuring that these are almost unattainable. It is elitist in as much as it sees quality as only possibly attainable in limited circumstances. • Excellence 1 (Checking standards) : Dilutes the notion of excellence. Quality is attributed to items that fulfill minimum standards – the result of scientific quality control The excellence and standards approaches see quality and standards as inextricably linked

12. Quality as “Exceptional” or “Perfection” II A second approach to excellence (excellence 2) sees it in terms of consistency. It focuses on process and sets specifications that it aims to meet perfectly. This is encapsulated in two interrelated dictums zero defects and getting things right first time. Zero defects The notion of 'quality as excellence' opens the doors to other claimants to the title. The emphasis on doing 'the right things well' can be shifted from inputs and outputs to process. Excellence can be redefined in terms of conformance to specification rather than exceeding high standards Quality Culture A culture of quality is one in which everybody in the organisation, not just the quality controllers, is responsible for quality. A quality culture involves a devolution of responsibility for quality. The organisation is seen as a system of interrelated nodes Checking outputs—quality control—is anathema to a quality culture. The whole emphasis is on ensuring that things are 'done right first time’. When they are not, then the process that has led to an unsatisfactory output is analysed so that corrections can be made in the process to ensure that the problem does not arise again.

13. Quality as “Fitness for Purpose” • This approach suggests that quality only has meaning in relation to the purpose of the product or service • This notion is quite remote from the idea of quality as something special, distinctive, elitist, conferring status or difficult to attain. It is a functional definition of quality rather than an exceptional one. If something does the job it is designed for then it is a quality product or service. • Unlike the exceptional notion of quality, which, by definition, must be exclusive (even in the weaker standards checking approach) fitness for purpose, like 'zero defects', is inclusive. • One question arises : whose purpose and how is fitness assessed?

14. Quality as “Fitness for Purpose” • Fitness for Purpose 1 (FFP1) — customer specification Meeting requirements. The assumption is that a quality service, in meeting the specification, is meeting customer requirements. The idea that the customer determines the specification is, however, an idealisation. While customers' needs are seen as a crucial factor in the design of a product or service, they are something the producer or provider has to anticipate. • Fitness for Purpose 2 (FFP2) — mission The tricky issue of determining who are the customers of higher education and what their requirements are can be circumscribed by returning the emphasis to the institution. Rather than worry, in the first instance, about meeting customer requirements, quality can be defined in terms of the institution fulfilling its own stated objectives, or mission. FFP 2 has also been referred to as 'quality in fact’. Quality assurance. Quality assurance is not about specifying the standards orspecifications against which to measure or control quality. Quality assurance is about ensuring that there are mechanisms, procedures and processes in place to ensure that the desired quality, however defined and measured, is delivered.

15. Quality as “Value for Money” A populist notion of quality equates it with value. 'Quality at a price you can afford' all imply a 'high standard' specification at reduced cost. Although quality is often popularly equated with value for money, quality is assessed against other criteria, such as standards, level of specification or reliability. Nonetheless neo-liberal rhetoric has related quality to value for money and governments in many EU states have made use of this populist view of quality. At the heart of the value-for-money approach is the notion of accountability. Public services are expected to be accountable to the funders (the taxpayer or, de facto, the Treasury) and to the 'customers' (the users of the service). Effectiveness is seen in terms of control mechanisms (quality audit), quantifiable outcomes (performance indicators) and research assessment exercises.

16. Quality as “Value for Money” The tendency is to see quality in term of FFP2, that is, provision fits the institution's mission, but this is contingent upon the accountability implicit in quality as value for money. Sceptical commentators want safeguards and argue that the proper application of validation techniques is crucial for quality and value for money • Performance Indicators • Rankings and League Tables

17. Quality as “Transformation” • The transformative view of quality is rooted in the notion of 'qualitative change', a fundamental change of form. • Transformation is not restricted to apparent or physical transformation but also includes cognitive transcendence. This transformative notion of quality is well-established in Western philosophy and can be found in the discussion of dialectical transformation in the works of Aristotle, Kant, Hegel and Marx. It is also at the heart of transcendental philosophies around the world, such as Buddhism. • It has been entertainingly explored in Pirsig's (1976) Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance.

18. Quality as “Transformation” This notion of quality as transformative raises issues about the relevance of a product-centred notion of quality such as fitness for purpose. There are problems, as we have seen, in translating product-based notions of quality to the service sector. This becomes particularly acute when applied to education. Unlike many other services where the provider is doing something for the consumer, in the education of students the provider is doing something to the consumer. • Enhancing the Participant • Empowering the Participant

19. Quality as “Transformation” • Enhancing the Participant quality should be explored in terms of a wide range of factors leading to a notionof 'value addedness'. The role of educational providers from this perspective is to ensure that: learners fully participate in, and contribute to, the learning process in such a way that they become responsible for creating, delivering and evaluating the product. • Empowering the Participant This involves giving power to participants to influence their own transformation. This is much more than the accountability to the consumer. Empowering the participant in education does two things. First, it involves them in decision-making that affects their transformation, “the learner must take ownership of the learning process and . . . responsibility for determining the style and mode of delivery of learning”. Second, the transformation process itself provides the opportunity for self-empowerment with consequent impact upon decision- making processes that affect the participant.

20. http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_how_to_escape_education_s_death_valley#http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_how_to_escape_education_s_death_valley# Thank you for your attention