Guiding and modelling quality improvement in higher education institutions

The article considers the process of creating quality improvement in higher education institutions from the point of view of current organisational theory and social-science modelling techniques. The author considers the higher education institution as a functioning complex of rules, norms and other organisational features and reviews the social mechanisms and processes through which agencies can stimulate quality improvement. The article provides a few examples of how these social processes might be modelled using social simulation techniques, including agent-based models, discrete event simulation and other modelling techniques developed for representing complex social processes of coordination and cooperation. A better representation of universities as complexes of organisations will support more effective quality improvement by higher education leaders and external agencies.