Managerial leadership for total quality improvement in UK higher education

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to increase awareness of the critical role of “managerial leadership” in total quality management (TQM) implementation in UK higher education institutions (HEIs), and to encourage further research on how to sustain management and leadership best practices for total quality improvement in higher education.Design/methodology/approach – A critical review of the literature on managerial leadership provides the theoretical scope which led to the setting of research objectives. The objectives were achieved through a survey of academics and non‐academics responsible for teaching and research quality improvement in a sample of 42 UK HEIs between the period 2000 and 2005. A mix of questionnaires, interviews, inductive analysis and hypothesis testing, was used to explore, describe and to explain the nature of the relationship between the degrees of efficiency and effectiveness of quality management practices in the participating UK HEIs.Findings – The analysis of the survey re...