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The 15‐year study of excellence in public relations and communication management in the USA, the UK and Canada produced an explanation of the value of PR to an organisation and a set of theoretical principles describing how the communication function should be organised, structured and practised in an organisation. These principles provide a theoretical benchmark for auditing the quality of a PR unit. This paper identifies the implications of these principles for PR education at the undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing education levels and for management education in MBA programmes. The excellence study suggests, first, that all PR education must instil in students the view that PR is a strategic managerial function rather than a technical support function for other managerial functions. Undergraduate programmes should continue to develop superior communication skills in their students, but they must frame these technical skills in principles of strategic management, research and ethics and social responsibility. Postgraduate and continuing education programmes should focus on strategic management and research skills and educate future managers to be ethics officers in the organisation. MBA programmes should include a unit on PR in a subject area such as strategic management, public affairs or corporate social responsibility to prepare them to work with PR professionals when they become senior executives. PR education at all of these levels and in both communication and MBA programmes should educate students to practise PR globally.

This chapter critically engages with ways that teaching excellence has been operationalised in practice. Specific focus is on developing individual teaching excellence, rewarding of success and recognition of teaching excellence and the building of evidence around what works in teaching for the benefits of students. We consider the daily interactions with students that form the basis of frameworks of teaching excellence before arguing that operationalisations of teaching excellence are highly context specific and operate at the level of institutions and the whole higher education sector. We discuss the criteria that underpin teaching excellence awards. This includes governance as well as development frameworks. After considering the complex links between research and teaching and the importance of the disciplinary dimension of teaching excellence, the chapter finally looks at the skills and attributes commonly associated with individual teacher excellence and argues that these are exceptionally difficult to pin down let alone measure. It concludes with some reflections on some of the challenges faced by institutions as they seek to develop the quality of teaching whilst meeting the requirements of the TEF.

This chapter provides an introduction to the problematic notion of teaching excellence in higher education, which is a focus of this collection. It draws on an extensive review of relevant literature to explore how teaching excellence is defined and conceptualised and what factors underpin different conceptions. It notes that definitions are disparate, often context-specific and are influenced by a range of different ‘players’. It then examines how different conceptualisations play out at the macro, meso and micro levels and highlights the tensions between performative and transformative notions of teaching excellence. It notes the move from ‘surface’ to ‘deep’ excellence and efforts to articulate a more holistic conception of teaching excellence that emphasises the relational, emotional and moral dimensions of teaching. It suggests that, rather than seeking singular definitions and conceptions, it may be more useful to talk of ‘teaching excellences’, to reflect a stratified and plural sector, a diverse student body and different disciplinary families. Equally, it argues for further investigation of the intersections of teaching excellence with other key drivers of institutional change, such as student engagement and well-being, inclusion and diversity, widening participation and retention and success.

This chapter considers the opportunities and challenges for HE to develop, support and celebrate excellent teaching. Drawing on conceptualisations of teaching excellence in quality frameworks and in the literature, it considers how teaching quality has traditionally been interpreted, suggesting (as in Chapter 2) that there is a need for more nuanced and comprehensive understandings of teaching excellence to be developed, demonstrated, recognised and rewarded, to reflect the complex nature of teaching excellence across the academic career profile. It considers how institutions might build and communicate shared understandings of excellence in teaching and promote a culture in which excellence at all levels of teaching is valued in the same way as research. It discusses the ways in which the professional learning and support needs of academics can be met at various stages of the academic career, to develop in teaching faculty and education leaders a sense of being appreciated, connected and competent in their contribution and commitment to teaching excellence.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse critically the Russian Academic Excellence Initiative (the Project 5-100), designed to propel five leading Russian universities into world university rankings (WURs) by 2020, and research it through the lens of neoliberalism. The paper seeks to reveal recurrent discourses and dominant orders of discourse constituting the overall concept of “excellence” in Russian higher education (HE) policy.

Since the Project 5-100 has been designed in line with a neoliberal model of academic excellence initiatives, emphasising “competition as a driver of excellence” (Hazelkorn, 2009), Fairclough’s approach to critical discourse analysis (CDA) has been adopted as a qualitative research method. There is no universally accepted definition of “excellence” in HE policy; therefore, this CDA also aims at revealing the Russian government’s vision of the concept and its voice in HE policy.

The paper concludes that the government reinforces neoliberal discourse on the HE agenda and transforms the 5-100 Universities’ identities through emphasising the role of WURs in modernising the HE system. Consequently, within the neoliberal paradigm, the Project 5-100 can be regarded as a manifestation of the commodification of “excellence” in Russian HE policy.

This research intends to broaden knowledge of excellence initiatives in HE policy and reveal their features and neoliberal natures. It also seeks to contribute in terms of showcasing a qualitative study of the Project 5-100 for future comparative analyses of similar HE policies.

This chapter critically examines how recent government papers and policies have informed and contextualised the new Higher Education and Research Bill (HERB) passed in April 2017. In particular, it concerns itself with the issue of ‘teaching excellence’, through what has been termed the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) that has emerged as a key plank of the current government’s policy for future funding of higher education (HE). It will consider the other spurs for reform in HERB, such as the desire to create a culture in HE where teaching has equal status with research, the need to ensure that universities provide better information about their courses and the experiences that they can offer students and the predictable governmental requirement for institutions to give value for money and to be clearly held accountable for any failure to provide a quality service to students. Lastly, there is also a strong emphasis on widening student participation across the sector and ‘levelling the playing field’ so that new providers can set up with the minimum of red tape. It is interesting to note how each of these additional areas for reform is clearly linked to TEF, which, this chapter will argue, will be the key vehicle used to drive them forward.

There has been an exponential proliferation of higher engineering educational institutions in India. The purpose of this paper is to seek to investigate students' perceptions of the level of Commitment of Top Management and Leadership (CTML) and Education Service Design and Delivery (ESDD) in Government Run Engineering Colleges (GREC), Privately Funded Engineering Colleges (PFEC) and Privately Funded Deemed Universities (PFDU) in India. The paper also strives to find out the significant predictors of Overall Engineering Education Excellence (OEEE).

A conceptual model has been developed linking Total Quality Management (TQM) elements and OEEE. The data were obtained from a survey of 992 students of higher engineering institutions in South India and analyzed using SPSS.

Significant differences among GREC, PFEC and PFDU were noticed in several TQM dimensions under study, and also in OEEE. The findings show correlation between the seven TQM variables and OEEE. CTML made a significant contribution toward attaining OEEE. Campus Facilities and Congenial Learning Environment also contributed greatly to OEEE.

The sample is limited to engineering institutions in a particular geographical area of India. Related study with a global perspective can be taken up in the future.

The comparative analysis of higher engineering institutions as well as the results of the investigative study of the impact of TQM on overall engineering educational excellence will prove useful to academic leadership.

The research framework presented in this paper is valuable to the top managements of higher engineering institutions.

The purpose of this paper is to explore parents as “stakeholders” in higher education in England and how they perceive teaching excellence.

The study adopted a qualitative research design using an interpretative approach through which the authors aimed to develop understandings of parents’ perspectives as higher education “stakeholders”. The empirical data were gathered via focus group interviews and an online survey with 24 participants in the UK.

This study found that the majority of parents wished to be treated as an important stakeholder group in higher education. Parent participants perceived that teaching excellence could be evidenced through indicators and measures, for example, the design and delivery of the courses, progress measures, contact hours, speed of return of marked work, graduate employability and so on. They also saw value and significance in the students’ exposure to ideas and perspectives not previously experienced, in zeal and passion in the teaching, and in an academically nurturing, understanding and supportive pedagogical relationship between academic and student.

This study uncovered some apparent tensions, contradictions and challenges for parents as stakeholders in higher education, for example, in reconciling the co-existence of their desire to be involved and engaged with scope for students to be formed as independent young adults. Parents’ desire to measure teaching excellence is also compounded by their concern that excellent teaching is thereby reduced to a box-ticking exercise. This study has implications for higher education institutions wishing to engage parents as a stakeholder group in a meaningful way.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which higher education institutions can benefit from the implementation of benchmarking practices. Thus, the aim of this research is to point out the structure and applications of quality improvement, by providing evidence for understanding the implementation of benchmarking as a competing tool for excellence in higher education institutions.

The methodology followed in this paper is based on a method approach, including both qualitative and quantitative analysis. Research is based on 20 case studies of universities committed to excellence around the world. Data collection was accomplished by a well-designed questionnaire on how quality improvement can be accomplished through benchmarking practices.

The findings of this research indicate that benchmarking can improve academic excellence by means of comparison and assessment. The study finds that process performance measurements can bring considerable outcomes of enhancement, improvement and transformation in higher education systems.

This research on benchmarking in higher education institutions provides exemplar standpoints and practices for the pursuit of excellence in educational organizations, in order to gain additional knowledge and paradigm on quality improvement that can lead to excellence. Considering the population of rankings worldwide, the main idea is linked to benchmarking and the acceptance of being compared to others in the sector.

The value of this paper lies in the identification and presentation of several ideas and tools which can successfully be applied to higher education institutions in order to achieve excellence by using benchmarking practices.

The aim of this paper is to contradict past and present perceptions of excellence in business education, and to present excellence as a primary element for future business education in an era of new challenges for global management.

The approach, by which this paper is structured, is theoretical and has been based on literature regarding excellence in business education and philosophical works.

The findings of the paper support the view that current business education results in a partial conception or misconception of management with immediate consequences in managerial decision making and business activity. Business education should be seen as an odyssey towards personal (balanced spiritual and technocratic) advancement that can pave the way for noble management behaviour.

The paper brings out an alternative perspective on business education by considering economics and management as part of a unified context. The attainment of excellence in business activity signifies necessary changes in the foundations of business education, so that future managers have a wider and diversified knowledge repository that will allow them to act in a harmonious way.

The paper offers an alternative way of viewing excellence in business education combining knowledge on management and philosophy which perhaps needs to be taken into consideration by business schools worldwide in order to build a mentality of excellence in business behaviour.