Baldridge Theory Into Practice

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Baldrige theory into practice:a generic model

Mohammed Arif The British University in Dubai, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

AbstractPurpose The education system globally has moved from a push-based or producer-centric systemto a pull-based or customer centric system. Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award (MBQA) model happensto be one of the latest additions to the pull based models. The purpose of this paper is to develop ageneric framework for MBQA that can be used by educational institutes to achieve Baldrige qualityoperational excellence.Design/methodology/approach This paper traces back the history of the modern Pull educationwhere the key driver is the latest research and needs of consumers through four major phases of

western education. The rst phase is the idealist phase where education was primarily religious andspiritual. The second is the realist phase where applied education was rst introduced to solvepractical societal issues. The third phase being the pragmatic phase, where anything, that was notneeded, was put on the back-burner. The last of these phases being the existentialist phase, whichprimarily started after the second world war and was needed to fuel the res of rapid development andprogress. MBQA is a new pull-based philosophy operating in existentialist phase. This paper presentsa case of University of Wisconsin-Stout, which has won the MBQA. Based on the case, this paperproposes a generic framework.Findings Based on the analysis the generic Baldrige framework can be implemented using thefollowing six steps: identication of stakeholders; denition of goals; proposal of KPIs; setting targetKPI values; designing process; allocating resources; monitoring KPIs; and revising goals.Originality/value This model can be used by any education institute to improve quality and alignitself under the pull-based model.

Keywords Educational administration, Quality, Baldrige Award, Management accountabilityPaper type Research paper

IntroductionThe second half of the twentieth century, and now encompassing the rst part of thetwenty-rst century, has witnessed an unparalleled change in the ways US and worldcommunities exchange information. American citizens in the early 1900s relied rst onnewspaper and then radio measures to learn about the information and cultures aroundthem. From the early 1950s forward, television became the instrument of mass mediatransmissions. However, it was in the late 1960s to date the computer revolutionushered in the information age, a time that complemented and eventuallytransformed various print and television formats from American homes and librariesto computer terminals instant message. Historians liken desk and lap top computerstations as the modern reincarnation of Gutenbergs printing press and specically,the utilization of the internet.

Technology progress was accompanied by socio-economic growth as well. In the1960s the business community utilized the term push/pull. The push concept referredto the one size ts all scenario, where the producer was in control of the new productsand systems introduced in the society. Henry Fords famous quote You can have anycar you want, as long as it is black and model T is a good indicator of the push

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concept. The pull concept referred to the customer is always right scenario, whereany product or system was driven by customer needs. The customer informedproducers about needs, and they reacted by producing what was needed (Arif et al.,2005).

Education system historical perspectiveArif et al. (2005) draw an analogy with the educational philosophies and push/pullconcept. They break the entire pedagogy history in four periods and have a teachingphilosophy specied for those periods. The distinction is made based on metaphysics(what was real), epistemology (how to gain knowledge), and axiology (what valueswere most important).

The rst of the four periods that Arif et al. (2005) describe is idealism. This isthe rst of the two push philosophies. The idealism period existed at the time of Socrates, in his monologues. Idealism maintained that reality was spiritual,epistemology was about rethinking tried and true ideas, and axiology was absolute

and eternal, and man was seen as a temporal being. The teaching philosophyoriginating from idealism was perennialism. According to this philosophy, therewere specic texts cultured people should read and study to become literate(Ornstein and Levine, 2000, pp. 410-417).

The second push era is realism. This was popularized by Aristotle who suggestedthat reality was objective as well as measurable and not spiritual, epistemology wasthrough the use of senses, while axiology were based on natures laws and thus couldbe acquired. The teaching philosophy associated with realism was essentialism. Theemphasis of essentialism was to gain more useful job skills. Subject areas that madelearners more complete and productive consumers were emphasized in curriculum,thus creating an efcient job-holding and tax-paying citizen (Kliebard, 1986,pp. 260-264).

The rst of two pull periods Arif et al. (2005) describe is pragmatism. Pragmatismstipulated that if any factors in metaphysics, epistemology or axiology were founduseful, they were included and anything that was not found useful was dropped. Anymeans that resulted in protable ends were justied. The teaching philosophy thatoriginated out of pragmatism was progressivism. Progressivism was proposed by JohnDewey who mandated that public schools should teach using a series of activities orprojects that interested the students, anything they did not want to learn should not betaught (Willis et al., 1994, pp. 251-253).

The last pull period Arif et al. (2005) describe is existentialism. Born after thetwo world wars, this period suggested that existence precedes essence. Inexistentialism, reality was subjective, epistemology was only a personal search of choices and axiology was the expression of freedom. The educational philosophycoming out of existentialism is social reconstructionism. This philosophy wasproposed by education reformers as William Counts and Theodore Brameld andpromoted students right for individualized and experiential learning. It alsoproposed to include issues that lead to improvements at local, regional, nationaland international levels.

The current quality models in education originate as existentialist models followingthe social reconstructionist education philosophy. The following section documentssome of the reasons behind the popularity of quality models in education.

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Quality movement in educationQuality movement has picked up rapidly in the education sector. Arif and Smiley(2003) note in their review of literature that the major reasons for incorporation of quality in education system are:

. declining enrollment (Ray, 1996);

. declining quality (Chao and Dugger, 1996);

. facilitating change (Wiedmer and Harris, 1997);

. increasing tuition;

. changing demographics;

. advancing technology;

. intensifying competition among institutions;

. demanding better quality graduates by employers (Bosner, 1992; Rubach andStratton, 1994);

.

declining retention rates;. recording students dissatisfaction with the overall service quality (Montano and

Utter, 1999); and. increasing governmental concern of rising tuition costs (Bosner, 1992).

Arif and Smiley (2003, 2004) provide an in-depth analysis of Malcolm Baldrige QualityAwards (MBQA) in education. Arif and Smiley (2004) further describe the case of University of Wisconsin (UW) at Stout and their research documents ve majorprocesses within the university based on the MBQA model. Even though Arif andSmiley (2004) provide detailed information on this one working model, they do notprovide a generic framework that can be used by other organizations. This paperdevelops a generic framework for MBQA, after analyzing the data from Arif andSmiley (2004).

MBQA at University of Wisconsin at StoutArif and Smiley (2004) document the following ve processes within the UW-Stoutsystem, based on MBQA:

(1) Strategic planning process.(2) Budget planning.(3) Career center.(4) Information services.(5) University outreach center.

The rest of this section documents these processes in detail, adopted from Arif andSmiley (2004).

Strategic planning processStrategic planning process is the rst of ve areas described (see Figure 1). It wasfound that UW-Stout has an all-inclusive strategic planning process, one implementedby the chancellor beginning in the Fall of 1996. This was a result of an initiative that

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included inputs from the UW Stout regents, community, faculty, staff and students.This consensual thorough-going approach to systems accountability is central toStouts Malcolm Baldrige successes. Those successes were predicated on more andbetter services to be provided for the ultimate university product students. Thechancellor, using a series of focus groups and retreats regarding the denition of mission, values and vision, chaired this movement. Over several group meetings andbrainstorming sessions, the current and future conditions of the university and theexternal environment were analyzed.

It is important to note the UW-Stouts planning was not a one-time and/or top-downprocedure. Rather, these group meetings, germane with the mission, vision and valuesdened earlier, have been and continue to be ongoing. For example, an anticipatedbudget cut by the State of Wisconsin in 2003 resulted in these groups identifyingalternative funding sources, and hypothesizing possible remedies whether tuitionincreases or supplemental service fees are needed. Based on these inputs from allstakeholders, the goals and action plans have been systematically developed. After thegoals and action plans have been implemented, they will be, periodically reviewed andadjusted for any changes in operating conditions.

These planned initiatives have had a big impact on the learning environment of UW-Stout. Since this process includes inputs from all impacted groups, there is a senseof ownership among stakeholders. Since members from all participants are involvedduring decision-making processes, such as the above alternative funding initiative,they do not question the rationale behind the decision. This inclusive decision-makingprocess results in higher job satisfaction among faculty and staff, which undoubtedlyresults in the delivery of better learning experiences for students. The other majorimpact of this process is the promotion of systemic thinking. Various stakeholders,while contributing to the focus group and brainstorming sessions, are reinforced withtheir important place in the universitys policies and procedures. They are asked toexamine their own role in the university, as well as their impact on other departments.When a particular initiative from any stakeholder is not approved, there is immediate

Figure 1.Illustration of the strategic

planning process


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feedback given regarding why that idea or request was not granted. UW Stoutssystem does not operate in a vacuum.

Budget planning processThe second process studied at UW-Stout was their budget planning (see Figure 2).The budget planning process utilizes this universitys strategic plan as its startingpoint. Since stakeholder groups participate in and dene budget priorities, the budgetis allocated based on the consensus developed at various group meetings. Thisconsensus results in more transparency regarding resource allocations. As thestakeholders realize and recognize that their personal inputs and needs are important,they also understand and comprehend how their needs t into the universitys bigpicture. One particular student-authored incident summarized the success of thisprocess. Assessment of student fees is often a contentious issue, especially when thosefees result from top-down decisions. However, UW-Stout students recognized the need

for a career center that were both more accessible, professional and free to students andalumni. Therefore, they requested for and received tuition increases to cover thecreation of the UW-Stout Career Center. All stakeholders shared the discussion, costand benet the career centers function provides. This facility is an efcient operationthat includes modern, efcient and effective modes of career exploration, joborientation and employer development. Stouts students have organized themselvesinto efcient change agents, which mean short-term, out-of-pocket expenses. However,those same students created an ofce and agency that would provide future UW-Stoutstudents long-term benets. The career center now provides enhanced opportunitiesfor students to learn various job markets, write resumes and vitae, and practiceinterview techniques, as well as compete for subsequent internships and jobs. WhenUW-Stout students participated in the planning and allocation of the budgetary

processes, their extrinsic reward was their role in the UW-Stout Career Center.

Figure 2.Illustration of the budgetplanning process

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However, their intrinsic reward was their own amalgamation into the greater societythey would live in and contribute to.

Career servicesCareer services function of the UW-Stout Career Center is the third operation in theresearch (see Figure 3). In many ways, however, and from the accounts learned frominterviews with this universitys faculty, staff and students, this ofce is germane tothe operational philosophy this special purpose institution offers. UW-Stout extends awide spectrum of majors to its students, including engineering, management andeducation, all of which are application-oriented. Before UW-Stout students obtain theirdegrees and have their job interviews, they learn from real-world experiences in orderto enhance their learning, as well as increase the possibility of obtaining gainfulemployment. Therefore, as a transitional step from textbook and classroom-basedinstruction, the career center helps students gain service-learning experiences frompossible future employers in the form of eld observations, placements andinternships. These procedures help students connect what they learned in classroomsto the applications on job sites.

However, when the UW students have completed their pre-professional and on-siteexercises, and are approaching graduation, the career center adds complementaryservices. In order to help students make the transition from in-class learning situationsto actual employment opportunities, the center acts as job-preparation seminar site. Itgives students practice in several important areas, beginning with learning how to llout application forms. They also offer help with writing resumes and practicing for theall-important interviews.

Once the UW-Stouts students have practiced the necessary skills forpre-employment, the center establishes a series of on-campus visits with regionaland national employers. From these meetings, the students gain more knowledge about

applying and winning job searches. Potential employers, also gain insight from thestudents they interview, as well as the theory-based instructions those students havereceived. The third part of this employment partnership includes the faculty.Professors whose students have received pre-professional aid can evaluate, monitorand change their coursework in order to update their classes and to help meet employerneeds. The UW-Stout Career Center then is an important integral hub. Students come

Figure 3.Illustration of the career

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incubator facility for local entrepreneurs to start businesses, and it also supportsStout-area industry through various consulting projects. Both students and faculty areinvolved in these efforts through in-classroom into real world applications. This centeralso provides consulting services to local industry, and these consulting assignmentsprovide faculty with applications of their knowledge into real-life problems. Theseconsulting projects also generate internship opportunities for students, thus exposing

them to industrial trends and practices.This section has presented ve processes at UW-Stout being run under MBQAregime. The following section analyzes the common elements of all these processes inorder to propose a generic model for MBQA.

AnalysisThrough the description of the ve processes, some generic and common elementsemerge. The rst element in all these processes happens to be the selection andparticipation of stakeholders. It is this stakeholder driven approach that makes thesystem a pull system. For both the strategic planning and budget planning thestakeholders are board of regents, faculty, staff, students, employers and thecommunity. For the career services, the stakeholders are students, faculty, university,and employers. For the information services the stakeholders are faculty, staff,students and the university. For the NWMOC the stakeholders are the local industry,faculty, students and the university.

The selection of the stakeholders leads to the planning of the short and long termgoals for the processes. After identifying the goals, it is important that they beprioritized. This prioritization is also done by stakeholders. In strategic planning thegoals are related to the position of the university, its role with the community, its nicheareas in terms of disciplines and specializations, its ranking, its revenues, its size etc. In

Figure 5.Illustration of the

Northwest WisconsinManufacturing Outreach

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budget planning process goals are related to revenues, expenses, allocation of resources, identication of additional sources of generating revenues, etc. In careerservices goals are related to graduate nding employment and internships, facultyinteraction with industry, curricular modications reecting real social industrialneeds etc. In information services the goals are connectivity in terms of internetconnection, access to e-mails, access to the latest software applications, availability of computer hardware, availability of a platform where students and faculty can interactfor a particular course etc. For NWMOC the goals include participation in community,extending academic expertise to industry, availability of a platform to helpentrepreneurs and inventors start a new business, providing real life experience toboth students and faculty, more industry oriented curriculum.

All the goals specied in the previous step need to be monitored on a regularbasis. In order to facilitate monitoring, key performance indicators (KPIs) areidentied by the stakeholders. For strategic planning process some of the KPIsare: student enrollment, ranking by independent agencies like US News, number of patents, graduation rate, research dollars attracted, publications by faculty,satisfaction of the community gauged through surveys etc. For budget planningprocess, KPIs are: revenue generated, expenses, research grant amount, budgetdecit/surplus, endowments, federal nancial aid obtained etc. For career planningthe KPIs are: percentage of students getting internships, number of companiescoming to campus for recruitment, number as well as percentage of studentsobtaining full time employment on graduation, average salaries by each major,number of faculty industry interactions etc. For information services, KPIs are:percentage of students with computer access, percentage area of university coveredby wireless internet access, number of hits on different websites, turnaround timefor hardware and application complaints, dollars saved by in-house development of applications etc. For NWMOC, KPIs are: number of patents, number of companies

consulted, number of students employed in companies, revenue generated for theuniversity, number of faculty participating, number of publications coming out of the faculty-industry partnerships etc. After the identication of the KPIs, it isimportant that the stakeholders also identify the target number they want theKPIs to achieve: for example the number of students enrolled by the year 2010should be 15,000 etc.

After the identication of KPIs, individual processes are designed in order toachieve the goals intended, and the performance level required to be reached. Based onthe process design and goals, resources are allocated to each process. This process of implementing MBQA is very data intensive. KPIs need to be tracked on a regular basis,and if they are not meeting the target then processes or systems need to be modied.This endeavor of collecting data requires a knowledge management system. Thisknowledge management system stores all the data generated over time and generatesreports that stakeholders can review in their periodic meetings and assess the successrate of their plans. If goals are not met then a root cause analysis is performed andbased on cause actions taken. These actions can be having additional stakeholders whocan provide inputs to the process, revising goals if they were unrealistic, allocation of additional resources if currently they are inadequate, changing the strategic directionof the process if national, international, economic, social, or industrial focus haschanged. Once any revision to goals is done at this stage, the corresponding KPIs need

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to be revised and their target values reset to reect the changed conditions. Figure 6summarizes the generic model for MBQA. The following section presents theconcluding remarks for this research.

Concluding remarksThis paper has presented MBQA in the context of the historical perspective of pull-based education system. The paper presents the history of education system bydividing it into four phases. It further classies the periods as push-based (producerdriven) and pull-based (consumer driven). The rst being the Idealist phase whereeducation was primarily religious and spiritual. The second phase is the Realist phasewhere applied education was rst introduced to solve practical societal issues. Thethird phase being the pragmatic phase, where anything, that was not needed, wasthrown on the back-burner. The last of these phases is the existentialist phase thatprimarily started after the second world war and was needed to fuel the res of rapiddevelopment and progress. Idealist and realist phases are the push-based phases wherethe teacher decided what to teach, whereas pragmatic and existentialist phases are thepull-based phases where the consumers had a say in the design and delivery of thecurriculum. MBQA in education is an indication of further proliferation of pull-basedphilosophy in education.

Figure 6.MBQA generic model


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This paper presents the case of MBQA implementation at UW-Stout. The paper rstdocuments the ve processes at UW-Stout being run under MBQA regime. Theresearch indicates that the ve components of UW-Stout operations create anenvironment conducive to melding university teaching to student learning.Participation of faculty, staff and students in strategic and budget planningprovides transparency to these operations. People working at UW-Stout feel satisedtheir voices are being heard. Increased job satisfaction results in more motivatedemployees, who, in turn, provide higher quality services in classrooms. The careercenter arranges internships and job interviews for students and alumni. It alsoarranges meetings between faculty and employers. These opportunities, in turn, resultin faculty gaining input regarding their curriculum, and they can then implement anychanges needed to keep their students abreast with changing business and industrialpractices.

The information service at UW-Stout is responsible for maintaining class websites,which give students immediate and constant access to class notes, presentation andgrades. This increased access results in more opportunities so those students can learnand they can do it at times more convenient to them. Information service is alsoresponsible for developing specialized software needed by faculty in their classrooms.Such software can help simulate laboratory experiments, perform select analyticalfunctions and provide graphical representations of concepts and practices covered inclassrooms. The third responsibility of information services is to support the wirelessUW-Stout campus and maintain student laptops. This facility has allowed studentshaving campus-wide access to class websites and library resources. The last of the veparts of UW-Stouts operations covered in this research is the Northwest WisconsinManufacturing Outreach Center. This center provides incubator facilities to buddingentrepreneurs and helps them bring to fruition their ideas regarding new businessconcepts. In supporting these entrepreneurs, both UW-Stout faculty and students

apply theories to help new business practices. This partnership helps all partiesunderstand the theories better and increases the resultant learning experiences. Thiscenter also provides consulting services to local industry, which are amelioratedanswers to real life problems.

Based on the analysis of the ve processes, a generic MBQA model is proposed thatcan be adopted by any educational institution. The rst step in the model is to identifythe stakeholders for the process. These stakeholders dene goals, both long term andshort term for that process. The goals are measured using KPIs and a target value forKPIs is also identied. Processes are designed to meet the goals and then resources areallocated. KPIs are then monitored periodically and any changes needed in goals orprocesses due to changing conditions or non-performance of the process are made. Thiswhole endeavor is supported by a huge knowledge management system that storesdata, generates reports and tracks the KPIs. Through this case of UW-Stout this paperhas presented a roadmap for other educational institutions to implement pull-basedMBQA model.

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Corresponding authorMohammed Arif can be contacted at: [email protected]


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