Implentación de Sensores

Since having adequate financial resources was seen as essential for quality achievement, lack thereof was categorised as one of the greatest hindrances. Ten out of 15 interviewed HoDs declared that finance was an obstacle to quality achievement. This was most frequently mentioned by HoDs in scientific disciplines who need to equip and constantly update laboratories. HoD 8, for example, said “lack of funds is sometimes a challenge to facilitate laboratory based scientific experiments” whereas HoD 12 explained that “sometimes funding is a hurdle” and that it was hard to achieve cutting-edge quality with outdated equipment. Similarly, HoD 1 reported that he was unable to buy “a good projector for presentation to guarantee that the pictures of [parts of the human body] were clear”. Ultimately, this negatively affected the quality of students’ learning. He noted that without this modern educational tool “the diagnosis of diseases of our students’ patients would be wrong as they would not see the actual colour of the picture”.

There was also a problem in accessing financial resources and the bureaucracy involved was seen to prevent individuals from taking part in quality-related activities. Indeed, despite Al-Jawda University receiving significant funding from the Saudi government, HoDs described a cumbersome centralised process to access the funding and administrative support required to manage a department smoothly. HoD 3 revealed that “there are no particular budgets for departments heads” and “you have to fight” to access a share of the overall budget. This would seem to resemble the Scottish study where HoDs were found to have limited budgetary control (Saunders and Sin, 2015),

which disempowers HoDs from effective and efficient management of the department. Furthermore, decision-making seems to be affected by a lengthy and time-consuming the approval process (three months for basic secretarial equipment, it was claimed) and bureaucratic, thereby preventing quality outcomes. This can also concur with Albaqami’s (2015) claim that there are delays in implementing quality-related tasks in KSA, associated with the lack of financial autonomy and the need to have even the simplest financial claim authorised. HoD 13 highlighted that the workflow related to financial management in the university is time-consuming because it still “runs in an irritatingly traditional manner”, suggesting it needed “to be redesigned and improved in every way”. Such bureaucracy delays quality achievement as one HoD explains:

I have to write to the dean for everything I want. This takes time and the paperwork goes from one person to another […] So this hinders the performance, in general. (HoD14)

The majority of stakeholders reported that although in the past each HoD had been given a specific budget by Al-Jawda University to undertake quality related initiatives, nowadays, “there is no budget for quality at the department level” (HQU 1), as financial resources are “very centralised” (QDM 4) and “limited” (HQU 2). Sometimes, a “dean himself doesn’t have full financial autonomy” because he has to obtain approval from the university (Dean 3). Usually, such approval and transfer of finances take time; consequently, HoDs’ “pace of progress in relation to quality would not be that effective” (QDM 5). Dean 2 reported, “the way they [higher leadership] manage the spending of the money is quite scary”. Moreover, QDM 2 observed that:

The amount of autonomy they [HoDs] have is below what it should be and that needs to be improved. Because the more financial autonomy they obtain, the easier it becomes for them to implement the different quality measures that are required.

Regarding administrative autonomy, the great majority of the stakeholders have similar views to HoDs. For example, Dean 1 noted that “there is no great administrative autonomy for HoDs”. If a colleague requests to attend a conference or seeks promotion or suggests the appointment of an academic, HoDs cannot take such decisions unless authorised by the Departmental Council and approved by his/her Dean (Al-Eisa and Smith, 2013). Dean 3 reported a lack of power among HoDs:

An HoD does not really have any authority and is usually regarded more or less as an executive secretary and that is one of the obstacles to quality. In fact, his role tends to be of a secretary in the department, and not a head as such. This is because many of the powers are given to the Departmental Council. I already mentioned that the current situation is not satisfactory. This is due to the system in place in the MoHE which has so many constraints. This old system is quite rigid and does not seem to keep abreast with modern changes.

This finding aligns with UK research (Sotirakou, 2004) which indicates a lack of HoD power, which results in feelings of powerlessness and limited involvement. It also reflects the Saudi hierarchical approach to management, in which decisions are made by seniors and put into practice by middle-level management (Onsman, 2010).

Bureaucracy is seen as stifling quality initiatives; stakeholders noted that Al-Jawda University is highly bureaucratic in terms of its “financial system and administrative affairs which have become so complicated” (QDM 1). QDM 4 evidenced this saying, “they want to do everything by official letter and one official letter can take a few months”, so there is “a huge bureaucracy” (HQU 5). The majority of stakeholders urged Al-Jawda University to grant more financial and administrative authority to HoDs. QDM 4 thought that if HoDs have “financial autonomy and moral support from higher management it helps them to achieve quality”. It was suggested that enhancing financial autonomy for HoDs “will make the issue faster than it is because you don't need to wait for other people to discuss and talk then take decision after months” (HQU 5). QDM 2

added that if HoDs can offer sufficient financial incentives to their employees, “they will provide their better contribution to the quality effort […] would be much more productive and much more fruitful at the same time”. Dean 2 suggested flexible budgeting to address the issue of financial autonomy for HoDs:

Give them a certain budget from the beginning and if they need more, justify it and we will give it. We call it flexible budget. If we have a flexible budget between the universities down to the HoD, this will smooth quality achievement.

Although the stakeholders urge Al-Jawda University to give more financial autonomy to HoDs, some like QDMs 2 and 4 noted the importance of HoDs spending the money wisely by targeting the right quality initiatives.

Most interviewees bemoaned the lack of autonomy, which is also explicit in the HoD job description (see point 3, titled Authorities, of the HoD job description in Section 4.2.1.1). Six out of twelve entries in this part of the job description start with the word

recommending, meaning HoDs have limited authority in core aspects of the department,

e.g. financial or contractual decisions.

In spite of the above, four HoDs believed that Al-Jawda University empowered them to make certain administrative and financial decisions, allowing them to support departmental initiatives, thereby improving quality. They cited that they “have freedom to lower the teaching hours” (HoD 13) of academics to release them to complete paperwork related to quality, which was clearly important to them. HoDs cited several instances of using financial power to support quality initiatives as acknowledged by HoD 1, “I have a budget that allows me to give the staff bonuses to motivate academics and gain their co-operation in working towards accreditation”. Furthermore, it was mentioned that using their financial authority helped the HoDs to “send academics

abroad to attend conferences regarding quality” (HoD 5). HoD 3 explained how he used his power to provide academics with “labs and equipment” in order to achieve quality. Similarly, some stakeholders have slightly different views regarding the limited financial and administrative independence of HoDs. One thought “financial autonomy is not a prerequisite to achieving quality” (HQU 4). Others believed the amount of freedom was sufficient: According to QDM 8, HoDs have “a very good level of freedom to implement their own decisions maybe with the exception of being not able to fire someone”. HQU 1 further elaborated that HoDs still enjoy considerable power and achieve good results on quality, saying:

HoDs have the power to form committees to oversee anything that the department practises. Like for example, research, teaching, they have an authority to bring a member or staff, for example, to raise questions with regards to inflation of grades or opposites. If students complain about using certain unfavourable strategies of teaching or unfair assessment, the HoD has the authority to bring the member of staff and raise these questions. He also has an authority over staff attendances and absences. He can recruit staff, so has great authority.

It is clear that there are differences in the management of financial resources and autonomy that HoDs have and it seems that some HoDs may have expectations that are not being met in terms of providing what they perceive as quality initiatives. This further indicates that there is an apparent discrepancy in the prescribed and practised levels of authority in Al-Jawda University, which may affect the intended quality achievement in some departments.