Integration of Strategic Management and Quality Assurance in the Romanian Higher Education

Abstract The purpose of the present study is to investigate the relationship between total quality management and strategic issues in Romanian higher education, of the way to implement quality management systems in universities with view to achieving superior organizational performances. To this end we have analyzed the relation between quality and strategy. We have defined a strategy for integrating quality which has a central role in the competitive strategies, believing that the balance of determination is the opposite of the traditional, so the university's quality strategy determines the other competitive strategies: marketing strategy, teaching strategy, scientific research strategy. The article proceeds in the following manner: first, we briefly review the literature regarding the relation between quality and strategy. We develop hypotheses concerning integrated quality strategy as defensive strategy that emphasizes the quality control of the educational and scientific research processes. Then we apply our model to a case study showing how Petru Maior University of Tirgu Mures (UPM) applies defensive strategy controlling the quality of educational and scientific research processes by implementing a quality management system, with its novelty aspects that is a combination between requirements of the ISO 9001 standard and the requirements of the Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ARACIS). We explain in detail the case study. Finally, we provide the research findings and discuss their managerial and theoretical implications.