Leadership And Quality Culture In Private Universities In Kenya: A Case Of Marist International University College

ABSTRACT

Quality has become one of the major concerns in the business world. There is a lot technological invention and innovation across the globe and the world has become a global village. The consumers are informed and stakeholders are demanding accountability. This has raised a lot of pressure on how organizations should produce and deliver their products and service. Culture has also become a membrane which has to be penetrated for successful implementation of quality management. This entails enabling everyone in the organization to have the right attitudes and act towards delivering quality products and services. The purpose of this paper was to investigate Leadership and Quality Culture in Private Universities in Kenya guided by five research objectives; to determine how role modelling affect creation of quality culture in private universities in Kenya, to establish how leadership commitment affect creation of quality culture in private universities in Kenya, to determine how stakeholders involvement affect creation of quality culture in private universities in Kenya, to establish how communication affect creation of quality culture in private universities in Kenya and determine challenges that impedes creation of quality culture in private universities in Kenya. This research aims at making contribution on quality management of universities in Kenya and aid stakeholders in making policies and taking up their roles towards quality education The objectives guided the review of both theoretical and empirical literature on leadership, quality management and quality culture from which the conceptual framework was developed highlighting facets of leadership as factors of quality culture which are leadership commitment, role modeling, employee engagement, communication, continuous improvement and management of stakeholders. The research used case study design and both primary and secondary data was used in coming up with the findings. Questionnaires were the main research instrument that was used to collect data from the respondents although the researcher also used observation to conclude other areas of the research. Data was analyzed by use of a computer software (SPSS), descriptive statistics and percentages and presented in graphs and tables for easy interpretation. The findings revealed that leadership commitment, role modelling, stakeholders’ involvement, communication are key aspects of creating quality culture although private universities in reference to MIUC have not be paying adequate attention to employees who are key actors of culture. This study recommends that for private universities in reference to MIUC, to improve the quality of education, they should allocate more resources in ensuring constant and visible improvement actions in people (who are the actors of quality), processes (which provide the means how quality is achieved) and customer responsiveness (which measure quality), and make sure that everyone in the organization comprehend and make quality a way of doing things.