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The aim of this paper is to provide insights into the processes that can be and have been adopted by UK business schools as they attempt to meet the Quality Assurance Agency's concern with the standard of quality management and enhancement.

A review of the literature provides interpretations of quality, quality management and quality enhancement. The paper continues by identifying the ways in which priorities in need of improvement are identified. The different “quality” models that are employed are then evaluated in terms of their implementation within business schools.

The paper concludes with emerging reflections that highlight that the most significant aspect in terms of taking forward different models, processes and approaches is the importance of organisational culture.

It is argued that without an awareness of the existing organisational culture the introduction of any model, process or approach will not in itself create or sustain a quality enhancement culture.

The paper seeks to deepen the understanding of university lecturers' perceptions of quality.

The paper employs a literature review to establish a robust analytical framework and the use of in‐depth, semi‐structured interviews with a random sample of 20 lecturers in a range of UK universities. The interview data was categorised using the constant comparative method.

The majority of the respondents perceived quality to be largely related to fitness for purpose and accountability rather than transformation. Many respondents made reference to quality assurance or terms associated with it. On the other hand, very few respondents referred to quality enhancement or associated terms.

The research would suggest that enhancement activities in universities need to be developed further and then highlighted as the respondents in this small sample perceived quality to be more about assurance than enhancement. The research would need to be extended to a far greater number of respondents, as at the moment the results are largely illuminative.

Academic development staff should review the impact of their quality initiatives and, if necessary, consider different ways in which they can enhance the quality of the teaching in their universities.

There has been an evaluation of the effect of particular Teaching Quality Enhancement Fund initiatives and the impact of subject reviews, but there has been relatively little consideration of lecturers' perceptions of quality.

Public sector policymakers have been preoccupied with quality, performance and impact initiatives, which constrain and define the strategic and operational objectives of public sector bodies. This theoretical article aims to review the quality, performance management and impact assessment regimes that currently impact on public and academic libraries in the UK, and to explore the challenges for managers in finding their path through this quality maze. Much of the literature focuses on individual initiatives, with little reference to the wider quality management context. Also seeks to urge consideration of the cumulative impact of such initiatives, with their different notions of quality, on public sector organisations and their quality management processes.

The article is an opinion piece that offers some conceptual frameworks, based on an analysis of literature, practice and web sites gathered over many years' investigation and observation. The tension between externally‐focused quality assurance and internally‐focused quality enhancement is taken as a point of departure. A further source of complexity is the quality management agendas that impact on library and information services from different levels in the organisation, otherwise described as the quality hierarchy.

A review of the approaches to collecting customer evaluations of service quality, enhancing quality and performance, and the accreditation of quality and performance illustrates the complexity associated with accommodating agendas arising from different contexts, and the competing notions of quality that are embedded in these different approaches.

The range of different influences on quality management, the sheer complexity and dynamism of the landscape and the management challenges associated with maintaining an appropriate quality management regime for any specific information service, are key messages that emerge from this review. Information managers in different posts experience the quality maze differently. Further research and reflection on practice are necessary.

This paper provides useful information for those managers trying to implement quality, performance and impact assessment regimes.

The purpose of this paper is to examine faculty members' perceptions over time with respect to the concept of quality assurance; the evaluation objects and the rationale for choosing them; and attitudes toward the application of this process in the college and in its academic units.

This a qualitative longitudinal case study of one veteran college of education in the center of Israel. The leading faculty members under study comprised 17 subject‐matter department heads specializing in the humanities, science and in education. All of them implemented an internal evaluation in their departments as part of a quality assurance process. The study involved two rounds of semi‐structured interviews: at the beginning of the process and two‐and‐a‐half years later, using categorical content analysis.

The results indicate that time is required for the process to mature, for process objection level to decline and for assertive leadership to evolve. Positive attitudes emerge when faculty members are given the opportunity to act in an autonomous atmosphere, when organizational learning frameworks are established and when variety is legitimized. Furthermore, faculty members take responsibility and understand that the process improves the quality of their work. Overall, perceptions of processes changed from quality assurance as external supervision imposed on the institution, to quality enhancement emerging from the academic faculty and from the needs of the institution.

For decision makers and practitioners in higher education, this case study represents one stage in building an organizational culture, that can contribute in the future to external quality assurance processes when required by stakeholders.

Starts from the premiss that the Government White Paper of 1991 and the Further and Higher Education Act of 1992, in concentrating their attention on accountability, paid insufficient attention to enhancing the quality of provision in higher education. Suggests that whilst the present arrangements for the external scrutiny of quality in higher education (quality audit and quality assessment) have led to some improvements, the future demands on the sector – well articulated in the MacFarlane report of 1993 – are likely to require a much more proactive approach to the enhancement of quality. Proposes that a funding agenda, explicitly oriented towards enhancement, could act as an inducement to the sector to respond in strategic ways to the challenges posed in the MacFarlane Report. A consequence of the approach would be the establishment of revised arrangements for external quality scrutiny at national level.

A practical inquiry into the best way to introduce quality in an academic context, working through a consultancy approach. Describes the development and refinement of a framework for a consultancy approach to teaching and learning quality enhancement. Outlines future developments and gives an example of a subject area taking on quality for itself and beginning to take independent quality enhancement initiatives.

This paper reports on an empirical study exploring the way in which campus‐based higher education institutions (HEIs) in the UK apply their internal quality assurance and enhancement (QA/QE) procedures to their e‐learning courses. The purpose of this paper is to identify those characteristics of e‐learning courses which affected the capacity of these procedures to assure and enhance the quality of courses.

A case study approach is selected as most appropriate for an in‐depth examination of the features of the courses as well as the way in which the procedures are applied. Two sets of data are collected and analysed from each of four e‐learning courses: QA documentation and interviews with stakeholders.

It is found that the main factors impacting on the effectiveness of the QA procedures are: the organisational position that these courses had within their institutions; the distributed configuration of course, teams; the disaggregated processes that characterise e‐learning courses; and the distant location of students. These factors are found to be impacting on the potential of the QA/QE procedures to enhance the quality of the courses.

These case studies highlight the need for campus‐based universities to reassess their approach to the QA/QE of e‐learning courses, and identify the challenges that course teams face in moving on from the application of QA procedures to addressing the issues of QE.

The originality of this paper lies in its analysis of empirical data about the application of QA/QE procedures in e‐learning courses in higher education.

This paper reviews recent research, literature and the views of a small sample of senior managers and academics in English higher education institutions on the challenges associated with embedding quality. When implemented by a university, quality enhancement models such as total quality management and the European Foundation for Quality Management need to be fitted in sympathetically with the organisation's culture and structures. If embedding is to occur, there needs to be a careful consideration of the opportunity costs of the various options that could bring about the necessary transformative change. The importance of transformative leadership and the creation of a conducive organisational culture are also explored, as are the major indicators of success. Senior managers and other change agents face major challenges but, by achieving the goal of embedding quality, students would receive greatly improved higher education and, as a consequence, their country's economy and society would also prosper.

Based on a detailed analysis of the reports on unsatisfactory education and provision otherwise subject to reassessment, which have been the outcome of the English quality assessment system since 1993. Analysis is based on the full text of the reports and not simply on a scrutiny of the conclusions and recommendations of the assessors. Examines both the original report and that on the subsequent re‐assessment. Wider than any previous analysis, therefore, and able to comment in some detail on the action taken to address assessors’ concerns and to redress problems of quality. Builds on earlier research by focusing on the action taken by higher education institutions to redress problems identified by assessors, and the extent to which the assessment method as operated by HEFCE has been effective in securing improvements in provision. Analyses the action taken by institutions in response to assessors’ judgements of unsatisfactory provision, reviews briefly the extent of unsatisfactory provision and its characteristics by subject and institution type before turning to a consideration of the evidence of remedial action and enhancement.

Discusses, on the basis of existing quality initiatives, a systematic and integrated approach to mental health care in Northern Ireland. Utilizes two approaches: the Brunel Quality Management System and the FACE‐IQMS model.