Management of policy implementation within Australian universities

This paper examines the role of leadership when implementing new policies within one type of public organization. The context for the study is an exam ination of how management implemented the quality initiative within the teaching and learning function of universities during the 1990s. The argu ment presented is that university managers use process management as a means of implementing new policies and thus manage in a manner similar to other public sector managers. As a consequence, the achievement of stated policy goals is often compromised. This finding challenges the belief that the introduction of new management practices in the 1990s has changed the way all public-sector managers implement new policies.