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This paper aims to review the levels of management commitment and involvement in four small (fewer than 500 employees) pharmaceutical companies and the nature and extent of structured programs for policy implementation.

In each of the companies, the comparative success of policy implementation was assessed by the extent of management commitment to the process. Assessments were based on the review of 40 attributes of a four‐part implementation cycle. A lack of a structured process, lack of support and involvement of management and the degree to which management was subsequently involved in the overall implementation were commonly observed problems. The degree of management involvement was a prominent factor in the overall success of the policy implementation.

Quality policies play an important role in the understanding of a company's operational principles and practices. The most successful policy implementation in the companies studied relied on policies being drafted internally with the cooperation of not only the nominated quality management but also the supporting non‐quality management functions. The use of a structured and predetermined implementation plan that is shared across all sectors of the company and the development of supporting systems to monitor progress were also observed to benefit employee involvement and effective policies.

The study of these companies and their comparative abilities to follow a structured process for quality system policies provides valuable guidance for quality practitioners facing similar processes of change within their own organizations. A structured process for implementing policies is also provided.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how policy instability is priced in interest rates. Policy instability refers to the likelihood that the current policy will be changed in the future in the absence of political power shifts.

Chinese government’s experimental policy-making approach provides an ideal set of frequent policy flip-flops which allows us to identify the effect of policy changes.

Conditional on the bureaucratic quality of policymaking, a good-quality policy reversal is related to reductions in interest rate term spread and volatility; a bad-quality policy reversal is related to increases in the spread and volatility. The bureaucratic quality is multi-dimensional and the moderating effect is stronger on interest rates when it is measured more precisely.

First, we can use the interest rate dynamics to infer the policy risk premium, which is a more objective market indicator of the bureaucratic quality of the policy change. Second, the study is among the first that documents the pricing of policy instability can be moderated by the bureaucratic quality. The results indicate that it is important for a government to be responsive and consistent in liberalizing the financial market. It will lead to reduced cost of capital and volatility for investors and firms in the economy. Third, given that the bureaucratic quality is multi-dimensional and produces stronger impact jointly, a country shall continue to improve on different aspects of the bureaucratic quality. Although the study is based on the empirical evidence from Chinese policy environment, the results can be broadly applied to any developing economies that intend to liberalize the market to spur economic growth.

Since the spread of mass education around the world in the mid- to late-twentieth century, teacher quality has been heralded as the key factor to improve education quality nationwide. National education systems worldwide are also engaged in ongoing and often high stakes cross-national comparisons. As a result, policy-makers and educators in most national education systems are looking at and implementing new ways to improve education overall by raising teacher quality levels, and India is no exception. In India, teacher quality is publicly blamed for both perceived low education quality and demonstrated low average student performance, especially following Indian students’ performance on the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment. Indian education policy-makers are, therefore, looking at teacher quality as a key factor to improve student performance. Little is known about the impact or implementation of Indian policy frameworks on teacher quality and associated student outcomes in India. This introductory chapter identifies and analyzes various measures of teacher quality and how teacher quality varies in India both in response to and in spite of national policies related to teacher quality. It begins by providing evidence regarding the global importance of teacher quality on student outcomes and then addresses the ambiguity of the term “teacher quality.” This chapter then briefly discussed national education policy in India and the role teacher quality has played in these national policies, especially in the early twenty-first century, including NCF 2005, NCFTE 2009, Draft NPE 2016, Draft NPE 2019, and NPE 2020.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of applied hospital quality assurance (QA) policies in Iran.

A mixed method (quantitative data and qualitative document analysis) study was carried out between 1996 and 2010.

The QA policy cycle forms a tight monitoring system to assure hospital quality by combining mandatory and voluntary methods in Iran. The licensing, annual evaluation and grading, and regulatory inspections statutorily implemented by the government as a national package to assure and improve hospital care quality, while implementing quality management systems (QMS) was voluntary for hospitals. The government’s strong QA policy legislation role and support has been an important factor for successful QA implementation in Iran, though it may affected QA assessment independency and validity. Increased hospital evaluation independency and repositioning, updating standards, professional involvement and effectiveness studies could increase QA policy impact and maturity.

The study highlights the current QA policy implementation cycle in Iranian hospitals. It provides a basis for further quality strategy development in Iranian hospitals and elsewhere. It also raises attention about finding the optimal balance between different QA policies, which is topical for many countries.

This paper describes experiences when implementing a unique approach, combining mandatory and voluntary QA policies simultaneously in a developing country, which has invested considerably over time to improve hospital quality. The experiences with a mixed obligatory/voluntary approach and comprehensive policies in Iran may contain lessons for policy makers in developing and developed countries.

Without a formulated quality management policy and a direct lead from the chief executive, companies are unlikely to be able to effectively co‐ordinate quality‐related decision making; consequently, the approach to quality tends to be inspection orientated. Results of a study on how quality‐related decisions are made in six companies also suggests that the involvement of quality staff in design, purchasing and market feedback is vital, ensuring that quality‐related decision making is effective and consistent with policy.

Policy instruments are specific policies – policy content, which is associated not just with policy texts, but also with how they are negotiated and practised (Dolowitz & Marsh, 2000; Fimyar, 2008). In the context of Bologna, policy instruments are Bologna action lines (such as the credit system, the study cycles, etc.).

This Chapter explains the development of the Bologna instruments in Ukraine until 2014 through the interaction of the policy continuity and change. In particular, I review how the development of the Bologna instruments in Ukraine was triggered and guided by the Bologna action lines, as well as by the old national higher education policies. I look at the cases of four Bologna instruments. They are the system of credits, the study cycles, the diploma supplement and quality assurance. All of these instruments have been developed through the reconfiguration of the pre-Bologna policies, which were chosen by the Ministry to represent these instruments. Namely, the national module system became the basis for the Bologna system of credits. The pre-Bologna education-qualification and scientific cycles made a foundation for the Bologna study cycles. The old national diploma supplement was a reason for the delay in dealing with the Bologna diploma supplement, given that a diploma supplement existed. The national diploma supplement was taken as the Bologna instrument even though their structure and content differed. Apart from this, the pre-Bologna higher education quality assurance policies started representing the Bologna quality assurance instruments at the outset of the reform in Ukraine.

The examination of these four cases of policy instruments shows that their development began with a mere change of labels for the old policies and proceeded with building up innovations to gradually alter the old national higher education policies.

Teacher effectiveness and teacher quality have become the focus of intense international attention and national concern. Dozens of nations are implementing a diverse set of strategies that aim to improve the quality of education by improving the quality of teachers. These efforts have not been well coordinated, and as the authors in this volume show, core constructs of quality have not been well defined. In this introductory chapter, we discuss why teachers are now “under the microscope” of policymaker’s attention and elaborate how the chapters in this volume identify particularly fruitful avenues for further study. The assembled chapters address two complex questions: (1) what existing cross-national measures of teacher effectiveness and teacher quality are most promising and how can these be aligned to maximize their research potential? and (2) what core constructs of teacher quality or effectiveness are missing from the evidence-base, and how can cross-national comparative research help refine these? To investigate these questions, the chapters in this volume address different aspects of “quality.” While quality may be politically contested, there is a significant need to continue to articulate a truly global perspective on teacher quality. The authors look at a wide range of aspects of quality in order to advance thinking about teacher education, instructional quality and workforce or organizational conditions that affect quality; to analyze instruments, tools, or measures used to assess quality; and identify what measures need to be developed further. We also note how scholarly study of the spread of transnational teacher reforms has failed to keep pace with national policy changes regarding teacher quality, and advance a more general theory of the forces affecting national policymakers.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze determinants of institutional quality based on six separate indicators of governance: voice and accountability, political stability, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, and control of corruption.

The determinants under consideration include measures of economic freedom by the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation, indicators of policy quality, real per capita gross domestic product (GDP), risk rating, and the degree of openness.

Five measures of institutional quality increase real GDP growth significantly across Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries. In contrast, institutional quality has a negative impact on the growth of private credit and private investment. Further, the combined evidence does not suggest that improvement in institutional quality is a major factor in attracting foreign direct investment flows to MENA countries.

The research provides startling evidence that illustrates how institutions have impacted macroeconomic performance and the underlying roots of institutional quality. Addressing shortcomings in institutions should top the policy agenda in an effort to drive the growth process.

Improving institutional quality will distribute the benefits of growth and enhance macroeconomic performance in the MENA region, which is rich in endowed resources. Nonetheless, the region lacks fundamentals of economic management and quality governance to utilize resources in the most efficient and productive fashion in order to maximize the welfare for a growing population that is constantly seeking productive opportunities to secure employment and a higher real standard of living.

The MENA region is understudied and worthy of much more empirical work. Many cross‐country studies of the determinants of growth omit oil‐producing nations. Focusing on this oil‐rich region is an attempt to fill this void. Unlike previous literature on the relationship between institutions and growth, the paper's approach to the issue analyzes micro foundations in the transmission channel between institutions and economic growth.

This paper examines how “quality” was framed in the design and implementation of a policy to reform hospital funding and associated care delivery. The aims of the study were: (1) To describe how government policy-makers who designed the policy and managers and clinicians who implemented the policy framed the concept of “quality” and (2) To explore how frames of quality and the framing process may have influenced policy implementation.

The authors conducted a secondary analysis of data from a qualitative case study involving semi-structured interviews with 45 purposefully selected key informants involved in the design and implementation of the quality-based procedures policy in Ontario, Canada. The authors used framing theory to inform coding and analysis.

The authors found that policy designers perpetuated a broader frame of quality than implementers who held more narrow frames of quality. Frame divergence was further characterized by how informants framed the relationship between clinical and financial domains of quality. Several environmental and organizational factors influenced how quality was framed by implementers.

As health systems around the world increasingly implement new models of governance and financing to strengthen quality of care, there is a need to consider how “quality” is framed in the context of these policies and with what effect. This is the first framing analysis of “quality” in health policy.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the dominant conceptualisation of quality in Afghanistan’s higher education strategic planning and policies, and consider the implications a broader conceptualisation of quality might have within Afghanistan’s conflict-affected context.

Drawing on data from document analysis and semi-structured interviews, the author identifies the dominant policy conceptualisation of quality.

The dominant conceptualisation of quality in Afghanistan’s higher education policy documents aligns with the sector’s primary policy purpose of promoting economic growth. However, quality assurance processes were developed with significant input from international actors, and replicate global norms for quality assurance. Whilst this is important for validity and legitimacy, at the same time it can be delegitimising for local stakeholders, and can limit opportunities for conceptualisations of quality which genuinely engage with the particularities of Afghanistan’s broader conflict-affected social context.

Introducing conceptualisations of quality in Afghanistan’s higher education policy which de-centre economic growth, and rather re-position social goals of cohesion and political sustainability as a central understanding of quality higher education, opens possibilities for the sector’s contribution towards national development.

There is limited published research into conceptualisations of quality within low-income and conflict-affected higher education contexts in general, and Afghanistan in particular. This paper intends to extend a critical conversation about the non-economic dividends a quality higher education sector can offer in such contexts.