2 - Initiative-based quality development and the role of distributed leadership

Abstract

The Copenhagen Business School (CBS) views quality as an ongoing process of change and has engaged in comprehensive and continuous quality work since the beginning of the 1990s. The university has developed a distributed leadership-based approach to the development of a quality culture, with major emphasis on reflective and responsive leadership at all levels. Quality is a consequence of, as well as a contributor to, a process of continuous change. The evolution of CBS has involved a systematic shift from teaching to learning, which has been a core element of the development of CBS as a ‘learning university’. In this respect CBS has taken advantage of external international and national evaluations and has adopted a multi-faceted approach to quality. The key has been the primacy of leadership of quality not the management of quality. Although the vision of the leadership and the enthusiasm and encouragement of the senior team are important, the transformation of CBS could not have been achieved without significant leaders at all levels of the organisation, including department heads, innovative lecturers and committed students. Rather than impose a set of bureaucratic quality procedures, CBS has adopted an initiative-led approach, encouraging academics, administrators and students at all levels to get involved in a variety of quality-related projects.