The Leader’s Role in Creating a Quality Assurance Culture in a Multicultural Environment

This paper focuses on the quality assurance culture in a college in a multicultural setting. Its purpose is to explore the role of higher education leaders in creating a culture of quality assurance practices in a multicultural environment. The external stakeholders’ perceived value of the institution has been declining over the past ten years, and it is unknown if the lack of a common culture of quality assurance practices within the institution contributes to its decline. The overarching research question is, how do educational leaders create a culture of quality assurance practice and standards in a multicultural environment to improve the perceived value of the institution? The qualitative approach to this research engaged a single case study design. Data was collected using semi-structured interviews, observation, and document review. The data were analysed using manual coding that extracted themes such as the need for a curriculum committee and the creation of policy documents. The conceptual framework outlined the concepts and theories that contributed to the analysis and discussion of the findings. The literature reviewed addressed the use of Hofstede’s six-dimension framework in determining the current culture in the institution and the ISO-9001 quality management system’s application in the multicultural setting. The findings of the research were that the college lacked a common culture of quality assurance. Participants believed that adapting a quality control model would improve the perceived value of the institution and that the leader played a critical role in creating a culture of quality assurance practices.