Changes in Academic Management and How They Relate to the Process of Institutional Assessment in Argentine Private Universities

Ariana De Vincenzi 
(Private University Presidents’ Council, Argentina)

Abstract: This presentation is part of a research paper called Quality assurance processes and organizational change in Argentine private universities. This presentation addresses the changes implemented by universities with the aim to improve academic management quality. A review of research literature on the relationship between quality assurance processes and changes in the academic process does not reveal a consensus on a favorable impact on this dimension of analysis. The work performed by Lemaitre and Zenteno (2012) for CINDA points to the fact that changes introduced in the area of academic management are not exclusively driven by quality assurance initiatives. In this regard, research has identified both internal pressures within universities and external pressures to adjust educational processes to workforce demands.
    This paper is based on three hypotheses in an attempt to explain the changes undertaken by universities faced with quality assurance processes:
    (1) The challenges posed by the national and international context require Argentine universities to address a necessary functional and organizational transformation, in terms of both competitiveness and quality.
    (2) Change in the academic quality of universities is the result of a trade-off between external changes and requirements, on the one hand, and the values, standards and practices resulting from institutional interactions, on the other.
    (3) Universities uphold ritualized practices that can be modified whenever tensions affecting the achievement of the proposed objectives are felt.
    In preparing this paper, a documentary analysis was made, including both self-assessment and external assessment reports for three universities that undertook the institutional assessment process in the 2001–2006 period, as well as semi-structured interviews with academic referents in each university.

Key words: institutional changes, assessment processes, higher education, educational quality