Quality in Higher Education

ISSN: 1353-8322 (Print) 1470-1081 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cqhe20

‘Skipping the quality abracadabra’: academic

resistance to quality management in Finnish
higher education institutions and quality
managers’ strategies to handle it

Jasmin Overberg

To cite this article: Jasmin Overberg (2019) ‘Skipping the quality abracadabra’: academic
resistance to quality management in Finnish higher education institutions and quality
managers’ strategies to handle it, Quality in Higher Education, 25:3, 227-244, DOI:
10.1080/13538322.2019.1685656

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13538322.2019.1685656

Published online: 20 Nov 2019.

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QUALITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION
2019, VOL. 25, NO. 3, 227–244
https://doi.org/10.1080/13538322.2019.1685656

‘Skipping the quality abracadabra’: academic resistance to

quality management in Finnish higher education institutions
and quality managers’ strategies to handle it
Jasmin Overberg
Department of Continuing Education and Educational Management, University of Oldenburg,
Oldenburg, Germany

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
A crucial factor for the success of quality management is University staff; academic
support from academic staff. However, previous research resistance; quality
indicates ‘academic resistance’ to quality management. This management; Finland
article analyses the present state of academic resistance in
Finnish universities, the reasons behind it and quality man-
agers’ strategies to handle it. The data come from responses
to an open question asked in the context of a quantitative
survey (n = 110) and from semi-structured interviews with
persons in both the academic and quality management fields
(n = 12). The findings suggest that different kinds of resis-
tance exist, which arise for practical, systemic, cultural and
administrative reasons. Subtle forms of resistance, like avoid-
ance, are especially common. While they display understand-
ing for resistance and use it as a feedback instrument, quality
managers have two main strategies to handle it: first, by
constantly demonstrating the benefits of quality manage-
ment and second, through linguistic adaption, namely the
avoidance of terms associated with ‘quality’.

Quality management and academic resistance

I think quality management has been created by people who don’t know anything
about research and teaching at the university. They are employed to do quality
management, but they really don’t know what it is all about. I was not listening to
those people. (Interview A3c, 2018)

Despite having been a fixture of higher education for more than two decades,
quality management still faces a variety of obstacles. External challenges such as
globalisation, marketisation and legal issues as well as internal hurdles including
varying definitions of quality, rigid organisational structures and, as the intro-
ductory quotation suggests, higher education institution staff’s attitudes
impede the implementation of quality management (Anderson, 2006; Harvey
& Green, 1993; Pushpa, 2015; Vettori, 2018; Williams & Harvey, 2015). The latter is

CONTACT Jasmin Overberg jasmin.overberg@uni-oldenburg.de

© 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
228 J. OVERBERG

a particularly crucial research field, as staff support is a vital factor for the success
of quality management (Lust & Scheytt, 2017). This paper uses the term ‘quality
management’ instead of, for example, ‘quality assurance’. Even though ‘quality
assurance’ is more popular in the context of higher education, ‘quality manage-
ment’ is more comprehensive as it includes not only the ‘assurance’ component
but all activities concerning quality in an organisation, for example, quality
policy, responsibilities or planning (Manatos et al., 2017, p. 159).
Numerous studies of higher education institution personnel’s views have
accompanied the history of quality management in institutions (for example,
Luke, 1997; Newton, 2000; Watty, 2003; Cheng, 2009; Haapakorpi et al., 2013;
Lucas, 2014; Ala-Vähälä, 2016; Cardoso et al., 2018; Overberg & Ala-Vähälä,
2019). Not entirely unexpected, these studies have found that academic staff
(researchers and teachers) are more critical of quality management than their
colleagues in management, support or service functions. Academic staff often
associates quality management with bureaucracy and control and see it as an
additional burden, which is, in their opinion, not helpful but too time-
consuming.
In this paper, organisational theories are used as a framework to explain
these group differences. These theories traditionally classify higher education
institutions as ‘professional bureaucracies’ or ‘loosely coupled systems’ (Weick,
1976; Mintzberg, 1979). This means that higher education institutions have
traditionally given their academic experts a high degree of autonomy. The
experts usually are ‘self-governing [with] a stronger loyalty to their profession’
than to their individual institutions (Alvesson & Spicer, 2016, p. 29). Nowadays,
this autonomy has been restricted by (among other factors) new public man-
agement measures such as quality management. These measures put focus on
external steering and internal hierarchies (De Boer et al., 2007). Therefore, they
are contrary to university traditions and intensify completion between
universities.
In this context, the term ‘academic resistance’ is used to describe
a phenomenon that occurs quite often in higher education institutions as
a reaction to new public management (Anderson, 2006; Kalfa et al., 2018;
Lucas, 2014). Anderson (2008) divides resistance into refusal, avoidance and
qualified compliance. Refusal means that academics actively refuse tasks asso-
ciated with quality management. The tactic of avoidance goes further, with
academics simply ignoring quality management practices. Qualified compliance
arises when there is no way out: academic staff comply with quality manage-
ment demands pragmatically or strategically (Anderson, 2008). Even though
compliance ‘can flow either from grudging resistance or from active ideological
support’ (Scott, 1985, p. 325), this paper uses the term ‘(qualified) compliance’
more in the sense of yieldingness: academics actually do not want to comply
but need to in order to fulfil internal or external requirements. Lust and Scheytt
(2017) cluster motives for resistance into an oppositional attitude towards
 QUALITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION 229

modernisation, a defence of academic values and a lack of willingness to

cooperate. Moreover, they extend Anderson’s classification to include non-
intended resistance: behaviour that might be classified from the outside as
resistant despite not being meant as such. For example, non-intended resis-
tance can result from restrictions such as a lack of time or other situational
conditions related to accomplishing tasks. In this case, not completing quality
management tasks is a consequence of how tasks are prioritised.
To sum it up, academic resistance can be considered rather weak: individual
withdrawal and silent compliance occur more often than organised actions and
open resistance (Alvesson & Spicer, 2016; Kalfa et al., 2018). However, the
question of how persons in charge of quality management can handle resis-
tance (regardless of type) is essential for the implementation of quality
management.
For this reason, this article aims to provide an insight not only into the forms
of academic resistance and in the reasons for it after two decades of quality
management but also into the perspectives and strategies of quality managers.
Contextually, the frame for this analysis is set by the theoretical concepts
presented and by the Finnish higher education system. Therefore, the article
starts with a description of quality management as a professional field in higher
education, before the Finnish case is briefly introduced. A description of the
materials, methods and research results is followed by a discussion of the
outcomes.

Quality managers and their responses to academic resistance

In November 2018, more than 500 persons participated in the sold-out 13th
European Quality Assurance Forum (EUA, 2018). The high popularity illustrates
on the one hand the growing importance of quality management in higher
education and on the other hand the growing number of persons who are
involved in and responsible for quality management. However, quality man-
agers’ opinions, perceptions and action strategies have seldom been the object
of studies (Williams, 2018, p. 83). ‘Nearly nothing is known about how quality
managers deal with reactions [. . .] like resistance’ (Reith & Seyfried, 2018).
Kloke (2014) carried out a profession-theoretical investigation of this new
occupational field and concluded that self-marketing and the staging of pro-
fessionalism forms an important part of quality managers’ daily business in
order to reinforce their acceptance. They need to have good insights into
both the management and academic sectors and consider exchange with
quality managers from other higher education institutions invaluable. Their self-
perceived effectiveness is related to support from higher management and
academic staff (Seyfried & Pohlenz, 2018). They belong to the group of ‘new
bogeymen’ in higher education institutions (Nickel, 2013) and find themselves
in a third space between academia and line management (Whitchurch, 2008),
230 J. OVERBERG

constantly needing to justify the approaches and measures they use to aca-
demics and managers while at the same time fulfiling internal and external
expectations (Seyfried & Pohlenz, 2018; Scharager Goldenberg, 2018). This can
cause serious conflicts, which might ‘lead to unstable relations, which pose a risk
for quality managers (rather than academics) because they can harm their
output legitimacy’ (Seyfried 2019, p. 5).
Hahn & Wagner (2016) emphasised that the fact that quality management is
often perceived to run contrary to the autonomy academics have traditionally
enjoyed is one of the biggest obstacles quality managers face. They identify four
arrangements quality managers use to deal with this situation: they perceive of
themselves as scientists, insisting on the scientific character of their methods; as
supporters, supporting (rather than controlling) academic staff where needed;
as service providers, considering the students’ perspective; or as developers,
trying to ‘educate’ the institution regarding quality.
Reith and Seyfried (2018) find that quality managers perceive resistance as
either a short-lived phenomenon or a persistent problem and that they mainly
perceive resistance in the form of open criticism. Taking Oliver’s (1991) con-
ceptualisation of organisations’ strategic responses to institutional processes as
a theoretical framework and concentrating here on the ‘compromise’ strategy,
they found that quality managers engage in all three of Oliver’s identified
responses: balance, pacification and bargaining. They balance between external
requirements and internal demands but also between different logics and
emotions in order to harmonise them and promote a common understanding.
Moreover, quality managers pacify actors in their institutions by legitimating
their work, for example by referring to external requirements. However, this
tends to be considered preparation for bargaining, a tactic in which quality
managers for example emphasise the utility of quality management or influence
the allocation of resources and therefore offer information and assistance. The
responses illustrated by Hahn and Wagner (2016) and Reith and Seyfried (2018;
based on Oliver (1991)) are used in this article as an additional framework for the
analysis of the research results.

Finland as a case study

Finland is an interesting case study internationally mainly for two reasons. First,
Finland has a good reputation in the education field first and foremost for its
Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results but also for its
high-quality university education: ‘Finland is known globally for two things: first,
Santa Claus [. . .] and second, education’ (Yee et al., 2018, p. 139). Several studies
confirm that Finnish higher education fosters equality (OECD, 2015; 2018); and
Finnish adults’ skills (literacy, numeracy, problem solving) are among the best
worldwide (PIAAC, 2012). Second, Finnish quality management practices differ
from other European approaches, as they focus on enhancement orientation
 QUALITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION 231

rather than on control. While the broader European trend was to adopt robust
external quality management systems (such as accreditations) at the turn of the
millennium, Finland instituted audits in 2005. Audits are currently conducted by
the Finnish Education Evaluation Centre (FINEEC) every six years; ‘the audit
assesses the comprehensiveness, functionality and effectiveness of [the quality
management] systems [and has] adhered to the principle of enhancement-led
evaluation that has formed into a strong tradition in Finnish evaluation practice’
(FINEEC, 2015, p. 4). Even though these audits are on the side of external quality
management, while this article is about internal quality management, it can be
assumed that the external audits have an immense impact on the internal
quality management, as audits evaluate and therefore influence it. In general,
quality management systems at Finnish higher education institutions mainly
consist of procedures based on the ‘Plan-Do-Check-Act’ approach: descriptions
of procedures in quality handbooks and the institutions’ intranet, systems for
collecting information (for example, feedback or self-evaluations) and develop-
ment and planning measures (Haapakorpi, 2011; Talvinen, 2012).
As in most universities in Europe and worldwide, international developments
such as budget cuts and globalisation have affected Finnish higher education
institutions and caused far-reaching reforms. The new Universities Act (entered
into force 2010) and the new Universities of Applied Sciences Act (entered into
force 2014) regulate the universities’ responsibilities regarding evaluation.
These acts state that institutions must evaluate their education and research
and the impact thereof and that they need to take part in external evaluations
(Universities Act, 2009, Section 87, p. 33; Universities of Applied Sciences Act,
2014, Section 62, p. 23). These new acts aim to make Finnish universities more
globally competitive, for instance by decoupling universities from the state
budget and by changing university staff’s employment status from state
bureaucrats to employees of the individual university. Another important factor
for current university life in Finland is the merging of higher education institu-
tions to increase their international competitiveness (Lindqvist, 2018). Since
these reforms represent ‘a rather radical break from the past’ (Hansen et al.,
2019, p. 15), they inevitably had an effect on university personnel: studies show
that they increased staff’s urge to justify their existence and led to a change in
the ethos of being an academic (Kallio et al., 2016; Ylijoki, 2014).

Materials and methods

The data material used for this article is twofold. First, responses to an open
question on a quantitative survey carried out at Finnish higher education
institutions in summer 2017 focussing on perceptions of quality management
were used. The survey collected data from four Finnish research universities and
three universities of applied sciences, addressing participants from all personnel
groups: research and teaching, management and support and service. Since the
232 J. OVERBERG

survey was a follow up-study from Ala Vähälä’s study (2011), the sampling was
based on the universities he addressed in his sample in 2010. Although it would
have been useful to survey the same universities as in 2010, we refrained from
contacting the ones that had an audit coming up soon in order not to distort the
survey results. All in all, two research universities from 2010 and two universities
of applied sciences from 2010 took part in the survey. The other three univer-
sities had not been surveyed in 2010. In this survey, participants were given the
opportunity to provide additional answers beyond the standardised survey
questions (‘If you wish to comment on the quality management in your higher
education institution, you can give your comments here’). All in all, 484 persons
took part in the survey and 110 answered the open question (23% of all
participants, Table 1). Most (91) of them left a comment relating to resistance,
to reasons for resistance or indicating resistance; 7 of them stressed the advan-
tages of quality management and 12 wrote down wishes for improvement.
Therefore, it can be assumed that especially persons who are critical towards
quality management took the option to communicate their displeasure.
Responses were given in Finnish, Swedish and English. The Finnish and
Swedish responses have been translated into English with the help of a native
speaker of these languages. The quotes used in this article were originally
written in English and have not been translated.
Second, 12 qualitative expert interviews with persons working in Finnish
higher education institutions took place: three in February 2016 and nine
from May to November 2018. All interviews were semi-structured. The first
round was carried out to conduct an initial exploration of the field and to
analyse topical issues. Therefore, the questions asked concerned current devel-
opments and obstacles in quality management. There was only one case uni-
versity. The second round focussed on gathering different ideas to explain and
solve the identified problems and discuss the results of the quantitative study.

Table 1. Sample: persons answering the open question

Variable %
Gender
Female 61
Male 39
Type of institution
Research university 74
University of applied sciences 26
Length of career at their higher education institution (in years)
<1 1
1–3 3
4–9 19
10–20 41
>20 36
Field
Teaching and research 60
Management 13
Support and Services 22
Other 5
 QUALITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION 233

There were seven additional case universities and the interview length ranged
from 30 to 75 minutes.
In order to choose interview participants, the technique of purposive sam-
pling has been used. To make sure that a certain representativeness is given,
a wide range of different perspectives is covered and similar perspectives are
included more than once. In this way, contrasts can be emphasised and pre-
mature generalisations avoided. The sample was constructed step-by-step by
repeatedly questioning what missing perspective would complete the picture.
Personally known gatekeepers were used to establish contact with five inter-
view partners; research on university websites and direct contacting led to the
recruitment of eight further partners (Table 2).
The abbreviations used to describe the interview partners indicate whether
the person mainly works in quality management (abbreviation Q) or in the
‘academic field’, which means teaching, research or management positions
other than quality management (abbreviation A). Depending on position, this
might mean that they have no direct connection to quality management (for
example A3c) or engage in a few quality management tasks (for example A4a).
The last letter (a-h) in the abbreviation indicates the higher education institu-
tion. Since the Finnish higher education sector is relatively small, Table 2 does
not cite the professional backgrounds in order to preclude conclusions about
identities. However, the sample included persons with professional back-
grounds in social and educational sciences, cultural studies as well as in chem-
istry, mathematics and engineering.
Both the data from the open responses and the interviews were analysed using
structuring qualitative content analysis of Mayring (Mayring, 2000;
Mayring & Gahleitner, 2010). The qualitative content analysis was considered to
be a suitable analysis method for this research, since it is a rule-based, controlled
approach and therefore able to handle larger amounts of text without falling into
premature quantifications. Mayring distinguishes between summarising, explain-
ing and structuring content analysis. The technique of structuring is carried out
here. The focus of this method lies on a processually developed category system,

Table 2. Sample: interview participants

Position Gender Type of university Interview format
A1a Research associate Male Research university Online
A2a Lecturer, head of department Male Research university Online
A3c Professor Male Research university Face-to-face
A4a Professor, dean Female Research university Online
A5g Lecturer, vice-dean Female Research university Online
Q1a Audit team member, quality manager Female Research university Online
Q2b Audit team member, quality manager Female University of applied sciences Online
Q3d Quality manager Female University of applied sciences Face-to-face
Q4e Audit team member, quality manager Male Research university Face-to-face
Q5c Quality manager Male Research university Face-to-face
Q6f Quality manager Female University of applied sciences Online
Q7h Quality manager Female Research university Face-to-face
234 J. OVERBERG

which structures the data material (in this case, the interview transcripts) and
helps to summarise the interview content. This category system consists of main
categories and subcategories. In the research presented, the two main categories
(‘Academic resistance’ and ‘Quality managers’ strategies’) were developed deduc-
tively from the theoretical framework presented and existed, therefore, before the
analysis started. The subcategories were developed both deductively and induc-
tively: while the ‘forms of resistance’ were deductively formulated according to
Anderson’s typification, the other subcategories were developed inductively from
the empirical material (Mayring, 2000; Mayring & Gahleitner, 2010) (Figures 1 and
2). For each category, classic examples illustrate the category definition. These

Figure 1. Academic resistance to quality management and reasons for it.

Figure 2. Quality managers’ strategies against academic resistance.

 QUALITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION 235

Table 3. Classic examples: academic resistance.

Subcategory Example
Forms Refusal ‘This has nothing to do with me.’ (Q3d)
Qualified ‘Pakkopulla.’* (OA)
compliance ‘I feed a lot of data into various systems, but I have no clue what is done with them.’
(OA)
Avoidance ‘I think it is nonsense. I was looking at the website of our university and I could find
some pages concerning quality management. But I have never seen it before
[laughs]. And I would not have noticed it if you didn’t ask.’ (A3c)
‘Not everyone is willing to know something about quality management. This may
cause dichotomy: not at all interested—interested. I think this is much more
difficult to overcome than interests of different kinds’ (Q1a)
Reasons Practical ‘It is kind of extra work. There is a lot of extra work nowadays. It’s more and more
extra work, which has not anything to do with the real duties, the real duties you
have to do.’ (A3c)
Systemic ‘Quality systems usually try to measure unmeasurable entities on scales of, for
example 0–5. The results seldom reflect the “quality” of teaching and learning.’
(OA)
Cultural ‘Finland has been great because of the transparency and vulnerability that is
possible in a close, trusting community.’ (OA)
‘As a university teacher, you are interested that the quality of your teaching is high
enough. You are motivated to do the work, you don’t need any management for
securing the quality. [. . .] It’s involved. Naturally involved.’ (A3c)
Administrative ‘[I]f the top management is not committed, it’s very difficult.’ (Q1a)
‘In the early days, every university put too much effort in this quality system-
thinking that we were alienated from the practical things of the university. [I]t
just went berserk. [. . .] And therefore, we did also bad things to ourselves,
because the quality work was seen as something outside the regular work.’ (Q5c)
*Literally translated, ‘pakkopulla’ means ‘duty bun’—‘pulla’ is the Finnish word for ‘bun’ and refers to a wheat bread
offered with coffee in Finland, especially in the context of festivities. It is considered very disrespectful to refuse
a pulla, even when there are more attractive foods on the table. Therefore, it is your duty (‘pakko’) to eat it.

examples are quotes from the interviews, which accurately underline the derived
categories (Tables 3 and 4).

Results
This section presents the results. Figures 1 and 2 show the category systems;
Tables 3 and 4 present the classic examples.

Academic resistance
Both the open responses and the interviews indicate that academic resistance
to quality management appears in different forms (Figure 1). These different
forms are described here. However, the research results also indicate that some
persons at Finnish higher education institutions fully accept and support quality
management (for detailed analyses of attitudes among various staff groups, see
Overberg & Ala-Vähälä, 2019).
The interviewees reported that a few academic staff members state that
quality management does not affect their daily work life or that they can take
advantages of it. Therefore, they refuse to participate in quality management
measures. However, a more common practice is that persons comply with
236 J. OVERBERG

Table 4. Classic examples: quality managers’ strategies

Subcategory Example
Demonstration of QM in daily ‘[Researchers] very easily say: “Do come and see our department. We are very
(working) life good and we have good results” [laughs]. I try to explain: “Okay, you are
doing great work, no doubt about that, but you could do it even better if
you start to apply some funding or if you start to try to use some services
from the library”. Then they start to understand what this quality
management means, that it is those actions that result to the quality itself.
And then they forget in two weeks and then we have to push them again
[laughs]. The tasks of a quality manager are largely like those of a preacher.’
(Q1a)
‘Then, at some point collecting it together for people to see: that’s what we
have done, that has been for the improvement of the quality.’ (Q6f)
Avoidance of terms associated ‘When we talk about quality at our university, we try to skip “quality”. We talk
with ‘quality’ about everything else, but we try not to use the quality abracadabra.’ (Q4e)
‘We are going more and more into the thing that we are not using the word
quality and quality management that much. We are more just trying to talk
about how to make a specific process better.’ (Q5c)
Involvement of staff ‘[S]taff members don’t always recognise their role in quality management or
know where certain policies are based on. So we try to concrete these
issues, for example different types of staff groups have their own quality
responsibilities, which can be found in the quality manual. [. . .]. And we also
have a slogan: “quality is small things in everyday life”. We try to help our
staff to understand that everything they do is important for this
organisation and our educational responsibility.’ (Q6f)
Demonstration of ‘[I]n a way, I understand them. And personally, when we started to talk about
understanding quality in Finland [. . .], I said: you really want to have a quality system [. . .]?
Over my dead body! That was my approach.’ (Q4e)
Resistance as a feedback ‘We always need the people who are a bit against. We will get better results if
instrument somebody is opposing what I do.’ (Q4e)
Exchange with other quality ‘[W]e always say that we go to the [quality managers’] meetings to cry at each
managers other’s shoulders [laughs].’ (Q5c)

quality management even though they are not totally convinced by it. For
example, they take part in evaluations without tracing the results or deriving
measures for improvement concerning their individual work. The interviewees
even reported a certain deriding of quality management, for example, making
jokes during coffee breaks, even though they execute tasks they cannot avoid.
Nonetheless, the most prevalent form of resistance seems to be avoidance,
whenever possible. In their responses to the open question, the majority of
persons wrote that they could not give detailed comments on the topic as they
do not have deeper insight in it. This is reflected in the interviews. First, persons
working in the practical field express their disinterest. Second, persons working
in quality management state that ignorance or avoidance of quality manage-
ment is the most important problem they face. However, the quality manage-
ment practitioners also state that these avoidance tactics may not be conscious
or intended, since quality management is just one aspect of the issues persons
working in research and teaching are confronted with in their daily work life.
The reasons for potential resistance can be divided into four areas: practical,
systemic, cultural and administrative reasons (Figure 1).
People criticise quality management because it adds to their bureaucratic
requirements without providing practical relevance. Moreover, the indicators
used to measure quality are seen as questionable. Since quality management
 QUALITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION 237

was originally designed for business organisations, it is considered inappropri-

ate for higher education institutions. In addition, the actual impact is called into
question.
Another reason is rooted in culture: the Finnish system, which was tradition-
ally based on autonomy, self-assessment and a great extent of mutual trust, is
now perceived as endangered due to the (perceived) competition quality
management brings in. This fear is articulated especially with reference to
current changes. The role and the purpose of institutions’ quality management
in the current situation, which is influenced by budget cuts and the merging of
universities putting university staff under stress, seems to be unclear.
Furthermore, the participants state that universities have always been com-
mitted to quality, despite not using the term quality management. Another area
of criticism is administrative. On the one hand, participants from the practical
field describe having a lack of information about existing quality measures and
desire more information and greater transparency. Furthermore, they see a lack
of communication on why quality management is important and investing time
to participate in it is worthwhile. On the other hand, people report a lack of
information about the measures derived from quality management procedures.
Besides, quality managers in particular highlight the essential role of university
leadership for the acceptance of quality management: if the rectorate supports
quality management, the quality managers’ work gets much easier.
Moreover, quality managers admit that implementation mistakes had been
made; for example, the implementation of quality management without refer-
ring it to the staff’s daily work. However, all persons in charge of quality
management observed a habituation effect in which resistance shifted from
open resistance to more subtle forms. Moreover, a certain generational
change is expected: in contrast to the elderly academics, who stick to old
academic values, younger academics have begun their careers in universities
where quality management is self-evident and are therefore more open
towards it.

Quality managers’ strategies

The results suggest that quality managers’ strategies to deal with resistance
exhibit a certain homogeneity and can be divided into two main strategies
(Figure 2). The first strategy means that quality managers constantly repeat that
quality management benefits the staff’s daily work and that there is a difference
between quality and quality management. Demonstrating quality management
also occurs via practical demonstrations: quality managers try to work with easy
visualisations that illustrate their (successful) operations.
The other major strategy, which seems to be in contradiction to the first, is to
avoid a certain ‘quality language’ and terms associated with ‘quality’. It is
stressed that lived quality management does not necessarily have to be labelled
238 J. OVERBERG

as such. However, this strategy reaches its limits when a quality audit is
approaching and staff will be interviewed about quality management. In this
case, quality managers need to return to their ‘quality language’.
In order to bring quality management closer to the staff, university members
are involved in different ways, such as voluntary working groups and the
allocation of concrete responsibilities recorded in a quality manual. While
quality managers tried in the beginning to convince every individual at the
university that quality management is useful, they now focus their energy on
people who are already interested in the topic. Accordingly, the space for those
who are particularly critical becomes smaller. Moreover, quality managers seem
to have, to a certain extent, accepted that some people will never agree with
quality management and have taken on a more relaxed attitude. They stress
that it is more important for them that employees show an interest in quality
and not necessarily in quality management.
Some quality managers who had formerly worked in research and teaching
report that they demonstrate understanding towards resistant behaviour, as
they used to be resistant as well. Since their institution employs them as quality
managers, they need to represent the notion of quality management; however,
they take resistance seriously and use it as a feedback instrument.
Moreover, an additional strategy that quality manager’s report is involvement
in a national quality manager network full of trust and solidarity.

Conclusion
The purpose of the research reported in this article was to explore academic
resistance in Finnish universities, the reasons for it and quality managers’
strategies to handle it.
The data show that resistance to quality management exists in all forms
described by Anderson (2008). Qualified compliance and (when possible) avoid-
ance are especially prevalent, which means that resistance in Finnish universi-
ties tends to be silent and subtle rather than organised and open, just as
Alvesson & Spicer (2016) and Kalfa et al. (2018) described in their studies of
other countries. Moreover, the results support Lust and Scheytt’s (2017) view
that resistance does not necessarily have to be intentional. The identified
reasons for resistance coincide mainly with the results by Lust and Scheytt
(2017), who describe how resistance can arise from the defence of academic
values and autonomy and an emphasis on the academics’ own expertise.
However, the reasons for resistance in the present case study also seem to lie
on the practical, administrative and cultural levels. Even though, as illustrated
above, Finnish quality management practices differ from other European
approaches, as they focus on enhancement orientation rather than on control,
the overall reactions and forms of resistance do not really differ from those
observed in other countries.
 QUALITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION 239

The present findings on quality managers’ strategies support those by Kloke

(2014) and Seyfried and Pohlenz (2018) insofar that exchange with other quality
managers is perceived as precious and that support from higher management is
an important factor. Of the different arrangements formulated by Hahn and
Wagner (2016), Finnish quality managers seem to see themselves most of all as
supporters of the university staff and try to address resistance by demonstrating
the benefits of quality management and involving staff. Since the main form of
resistance that quality managers in Finnish universities perceive is subtle criti-
cism, the presented results seem to contradict those by Reith and Seyfried
(2018) who find that resistance is perceived as open. However, the interviews
also describe a certain habituation effect in which resistance shifted from open
to subtle over the years.
The quality managers’ main strategies seem to align with the concepts Reith
and Seyfried (2018) described with reference to Oliver’s (1991) ideas: quality
managers balance between the different demands of personnel groups and
external requirements (for example, quality audits), pacify resistant academics
by avoiding the term ‘quality’ and bargain by demonstrating the benefits of
quality management and offering their support. In this context, the sheer
amount of persons being resistant plays a role as well: it can be assumed that
it will never go down to zero; however, it is important for the quality managers
to have an overview on the different kinds of resistance and the reasons behind
it. Moreover, they need to have in mind the influence of individual subject fields,
the academics’ self-understanding and tradition in order to evaluate if the
existing resistance is a real threat to their work or just a side effect. It can be
valuable to get to the bottom of resistance and try to overcome tensions by
stimulating discussions; however, this is strongly dependent on how many
resources quality managers have.
Returning to this article’s introductory quote, it is clear that the interviewee
was able to perfectly encapsulate some basic problems identified in this
research: academics tend to avoid engaging with quality management, since
they see it, and by extension the quality managers carrying it out, as an
unnecessary, alien part of their work. Simultaneously, quality managers, who
are usually not, as A3c supposes, new to higher education, try to overcome this
tension by implementing various strategies, such as advertising quality and
quality management as an ‘omnipresent phenomenon’. However, they cannot
overcome the fundamental bias of the ‘not invented here’ phenomenon (Katz &
Allen, 1982) that quality management was invented in a field outside the
university and is perceived as contrary to academic values. Nevertheless, quality
managers are still obliged to execute the tasks they were hired to do. Therefore,
they turn to other strategies such as focusing on supportive persons or treating
quality management as ‘that which must not be named’.
In 1996, Cameron and Whetten determined in a literature review that the
concept of ‘quality’ has replaced the concept of ‘effectiveness’, which has been
240 J. OVERBERG

abandoned. Now, more than 20 years later, the concept of ‘quality’, or at least
conversation about it using the concrete word ‘quality’, seems to be slowly
vanishing from Finnish higher education institutions since it is ‘skipped’ on two
levels: on the one hand, because higher education institution staff avoid
engagement and therefore discussions about it; and on the other hand, because
quality managers avoid using the ‘quality abracadabra’ to get academics’ buy-in.
However, this does not mean that the actual quality in higher education
institutions vanishes; as described in the interviews, higher education institution
staff consider themselves as committed to quality. In fact, quality managers can
talk about quality without using the word, for example, by referring to student
satisfaction and autonomy, enhancement, or transformation.
In this way, quality management degenerates into a formal structure that is more
or less decoupled from the daily business of academics and primarily of importance
for external evaluations. Basically, the management of quality gets somehow
decoupled from the actual quality in higher education institutions, which is dis-
cussed by other notions. Szulevicz and Feilberg (2018, p. 323) argued that:

[w]e should stop talking about quality, since the quality assurance systems have
distorted the notion of quality. The concept of quality no longer makes meaning. It
has become a buzzword used by stakeholders in a “pseudoqualispeak” where univer-
sities are urged to improve quality while being downsized at the same time.

Even though Szulevicz and Feilberg do not propose a concrete alternative

concept or term here, they point out the importance of the discussion about
‘good higher education’. This is, in their eyes, more valuable than pretentious
labels, which originate in the business sector and elicit associations accordingly.
However, it is clear that certain ‘labels’ need to be found to talk about ‘quality’.
Anderson predicted in 2006, following Newton (2000), that ‘academics will
continue to resist quality processes, treating them as games to be played and
systems to be fed’ (Anderson, 2006, p. 1). Looking towards the future, the research
results point to three potential paths. First, the situation could stay as it is. Quality
managers will work with supportive persons, who might at best play a role as
multipliers, while the rest of the academic staff is not involved and does not want
to be involved in quality management. If involvement is necessary, ‘quality lan-
guage’ is avoided. Second, a generational change could take place. Older workers
who are particularly inclined to defend academic values are slowly vanishing from
the university and younger persons who see working with quality management as
the norm are becoming the majority. Third, as Szulevicz and Feilberg (2018)
recommend, a fundamental reform could take place and a new concept developed
within universities could be implemented. However, this is a hypothetical and
rather abstract path, which would require a huge amount of time and resources.
On the basis of the evidence presented, one cannot convincingly argue that
the results presented are generic in higher education. The national quality
management network might have led to a certain isomorphism across Finland:
 QUALITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION 241

quality managers’ strategies might have converged, leading to similar answers. In

order to address this limitation, future research should expand these findings
with studies in other countries or with cross-national studies. Quantitative sur-
veys of the professional field of quality managers would be particularly useful to
fully understand how the majority of quality managers behave.

Acknowledgments
The author is grateful to Solveig Kronberg for her valuable help translating the Finnish and
Swedish responses to the open question into English.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID
Jasmin Overberg http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5863-1652

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