Abstract
Revealing the main point of an essay in the title itself is as ill-advised as naming the culprit on the first page of a detective story. But perhaps this is a case where the exception proves the rule. In a competitive society, uniformity is not a virtue. And it is especially dangerous when an exceptional product becomes the subject of inflationary exploitation. Just think of the more than 2,500 MBA programs that now exist. Regardless of their quality, they all take advantage of the highly positive image of the first MBA programs. The column of lemmings heads for the abyss. The problem that has developed in the last few decades from the spread of evaluation and accreditation for universities is in fact the danger of uniformity prescribed and implemented for quality assurance reasons in the higher educational sector in Europe.
On ambivalence in university evaluation and accreditation.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The basic source for the section between [] is the article ‘Thinking Photography’ (Burgin 1982)—with friendly agreement to any use of his paper by Victor Burgin to whom I have to say many thanks. I transformed his article in a radical interdisciplinary change from the conceptualization of representation by photography to representation by measuring. Of course, I am responsible for any misunderstandings and misinterpretations.
- 2.
- 3.
- 4.
For some impressive cases cf. Jönsson (1996).
- 5.
There is no fundamental difference between these approaches and their ‘internal debates’ on how to measure and to manage organizations; see Habersam 1997, referring to ‘controlling’ (i.e. the German term for the Anglo-Saxon term measuring and control), Bohni and Ejler (2008), referring to performance management.
- 6.
It is not by chance that the first cost accounting for universities was implemented by the “Technische Universität München” in Germany. Technicians are really good cost accountants but often lack social competence. And the present economic crisis reveals the illusions strongly connected to cost accounting and balance sheets in terms of bankruptcy and the fraudulences of formerly famous corporations and trusted banks.
- 7.
Even institutions with a longstanding polyphonic history may introduce evaluation programs “(…) strongly inspired by ISO 9000:2000 standards” (Darchini et al. 2006, p. 15), as the case of the University of Bologna shows.
Bibliography
Barnett R, Coate K (2005) Engaging the Curriculum in higher education. SRHE and Open University Press, Maidenhead
Baumann Z (2000) Liquid modernity. Polity, Cambridge
Bohni NS, Ejler N (2008) Improving performance? Exploring the complementarities between evaluation and performance management. Evaluation 14(2):171–192
Bowker G, Star SL (2000) Sorting things out: classification and its consequences. MA, Cambridge
Boyle D (2001) The tyranny of numbers: why counting can’t make us happy. HarperCollins Publishers, London
Burgin V (ed) (1982) Thinking photography. Macmillan, London, pp 1–14
Crosby AW (1997) The measure of reality: Quantification and western society. Cambridge University, Cambridge, pp 1250–1600
Darchini D, Giannini S, Gola M (2006) Quality assurance and evaluation of programmes at the University of Bologna. In: Orsingher Ch (ed) Assessing quality in european higher education Institutions. Dissemination, Methods and Procedures. Heidelberg, pp 5–22
Groys B (1992) Über das Neue. Versuch einer Kulturökonomie, München/Wien
Guba EG, Lincoln YS (1989) Fourth generation evaluation. Sage, London
Habersam M (1997) Controlling als evaluation. Potentiale eines Perspektivenwechsels, München/Mering
Hansson F (2006) Organizational use of evaluations. Evaluation 12(2):159–178
Hedlin P (1996) Accounting investigations. Doc. Thesis, Stockholm
Heidegger M (1992) Was heißt Denken? Stuttgart (originally Tübingen 1984)
Humboldt Wv (1982) Über die innere und äußere Organisation der Höheren wissenschaftlichen Anstalten in Berlin. In: ders.: Werke, Band 4; Schriften zur Politik und zum Bildungswesen. 3. Aufl. Stuttgart, pp 255–266 (originally 1810)
Jönsson S (1996) Accounting for improvement. Elsevier Science, Oxford
Kant I (1968) Der Streit der Fakultäten. In Kants Werke, Akademie-Textausgabe, Band VII, Berlin, pp 1–116 (originally: 1798)
Kappler E (2009) Die List der Listen. Controller Magazin, Heft 1, pp 32–35
Miller P, O’Leary T (1987) Accounting and the construction of the governable person. Acc Organ Soc 12(3):236–265
Power M (2004) Counting, control and calculation: reflections on measuring and management. Human Relat 57(6):765–781
Power M (1997) The audit society: rituals of verification. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Stake RE (1983) Program evaluation, particularly responsive evaluation. In: Madaus GF, Scriven MS, Stufflebeam DL (eds) Evaluation models. View points on education and human services evaluation. Kluwer-Nijhoff, Boston, pp 287–310
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kappler, E. (2012). Uniformity is No Virtue. In: Altmann, A., Ebersberger, B. (eds) Universities in Change. Innovation, Technology, and Knowledge Management. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4590-6_17
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4590-6_17
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-4589-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-4590-6
eBook Packages: Business and EconomicsBusiness and Management (R0)