Transformations  in
Business & Economics

Challenges of Quality at Business Schools from a Social Constructionist Perspective – toward an Organizational Model of Quality Development
Anna-Maija Lämsä

ABSTRACT. Quality and its development are an important aim for business schools to cope with and to meet the current challenges in changing European higher business education context. The starting point in this paper is that quality and its development are crucial for business schools not only because of competitive advantage but also because of ethical reasons since education should be an ethical activity which is strongly tied with values. It is assumed that the role of human resources – teachers and managers - is important in creating quality at a business school. The main purposes of this paper are:

1. to show that quality and its development are basically paradoxical in nature and to reason for the argument two paradoxes are opened up based on prior theoretical discussions;
2. to contribute to services quality literature by presenting an organizational model of quality development from a social constructionist perspective.

KEYWORDS: services quality, human resources, business education, social constructionism, ethics.