In Western countries, the higher education system was transformed from an elite to a mass education system in the 1980s. In a similar fashion, Taiwan’s higher education experienced a rapid expansion during the same period. In Taiwan, the effect in higher education was a growth in student numbers in existing institutions, an increase in new private institutions, and a diversification in the types of courses offered. Alongside these changes was the requirement by the government that higher education institutions should respond to national needs, and become more internationally competitive. However, although higher education institutions increasing in size, government budgets for higher education did not expand at the same rate. The result was that higher education needed to cater for the demands of a greater number of students, as well as meet government requirements, while being able to draw on deceasing levels of government funding. At the same time, Taiwan’s universities came under pressure to prove their ‘efficiency’, ‘effectiveness’ and ‘accountability’ to the government. The emphasis on efficiency, effectiveness and accountability has forced higher education institutions to adopt external measures, such as joining international university ranking systems and taking part in industry-academic cooperation. These measures are ‘external’ in that they involve partners or processes outside the institutions themselves. One of the major external measures implemented in higher education systems has been the introduction of a national quality assurance system.

Although the initial spirit of the quality assurance system was to help higher education institutions improve the quality of their provision, it gradually took on more powers. Among other things, it now determines resource allocation, which affects the way in which universities work internally and react to external pressures. Based on the University Act, the Taiwan government now distributes funding according to the results of their quality assurance evaluations. All universities therefore come under pressure to meet the demands of the quality assurance system because the results of a quality assessment will affect their resources allocation and reputation, as well as whether they can win competitive research and teaching funding. Thus universities come under considerable pressure to meet the demands of the quality assurance system to help them to reap the financial rewards and escape punitive measures. The universities perceive that in order to satisfy the requirements of the national quality assurance agency, they have to introduce new processes and structures, and the characteristics of individual HEIs have changed as a consequence.

The main research purpose in this study is to discuss the organizational changes that have occurred in higher education institutions following the implementation of the quality assurance system in Taiwan. To this end, a theoretical framework based on institutional theory will be developed. The theoretical argument developed in this article is that organisational changes in higher education institutions take place through the interaction between the individual institution and its internal measures. Organisational changes in HEIs are the result of the interaction between them. And these internal measures are, in turn, an outcome of the institutions’ interpretations of the quality assurance system in Taiwan. Based on the assumption of the importance of management practices and leadership approaches as determinants for organizational behaviour, this study of changes in organizational structures will show the way in which Taiwan higher education has been going through a fundamental challenge about its tasks, role and responsibilities in response to the quality assurance system from the 1980s.

Brennan, J. & Shah, T. (2000) Managing quality in higher education. An international perspective on institutional assessment and change. Buckingham, OECD/SRHE/Open University Press. Clark, B.R. (1983) The higher education system: Academic organization in cross-national perspective. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.