1. Introduction
Higher education has always been a driver of development for an entire society, as it influences the growth of the economy, culture and individual career development. Accordingly, higher education is an area that is constantly exposed to requests for the continuous improvement, competitiveness and sustainable development of all of the processes carried out in higher education institutions (HEIs) [
1,
2]. According to Temponi [
3], continuous improvement and sustainable development in academic institutions means exploring the needs and expectations of the institutions’ stakeholder base—which may be students, staff, accreditation agencies, community members, governments and state institutions—re-evaluating the effectiveness of programs and total quality initiatives at large. Students live in an exceedingly changing world with depleting resources. Because HEIs have to equip students to achieve their fullest potential in such an environment, the HEIs themselves must be dynamic and flexible. The economic conditions have created more significant concern about economic well-being and career flexibility [
4]. HEIs have to respond to this natural fear of career obsolescence and career inadequacy. Funding resources for education are diminishing at a rapid rate [
5]. Thus, implementing and maintaining a continuous improvement initiative in an academic environment is a challenging but ever-increasing demand [
6,
7]. The expectations of the mentioned stakeholders towards educational priorities, costs, accessibility, programmes and relevancy make it imperative for HEIs to undergo continual assessment and improvement [
8]. Having this in mind, sustainable business excellence (SBE) could be used [
9,
10,
11].
SBE is based on a business excellence (BE) concept, meaning that the exceptional levels of performance that meet or go beyond the expectations of different groups of stakeholders are obtained and kept, with current resource usage, which will not compromise future generations’ ability to meet their resource utilisation [
12,
13,
14,
15]. SBE represents a concept with many influencing factors: participation, motivation, professional staff training, a focus on customers, strategic planning, a focus on innovation and continuous improvement, leadership, process management, and most crucially sustainable resource management [
16]. As a result, SBE was the target of many researchers and professional organisations through many models, techniques and tools [
17,
18,
19].
In order to benchmark SBE on a national and international level, different award models have been developed. The most popular and the best known are the MBA (Malcolm Baldrige Award) in the USA [
20], the Edward Deming Award and European Foundation of Quality Management (EFQM) [
21,
22], and other national award models (Great Britain, Denmark, Australia, New Zeeland, Hungary, France, Serbia, Russia). The common characteristic of all of the award models is that they are based on a self-assessment approach, benchmarking, or an external assessment by the founders of the different models. Those models are not designed or appropriate for simulation purposes. The development of an appropriate SBE model for simulation focusing on HEIs is the primary goal of this paper.
For centuries, HEI professors have been giving lectures by traditional methods while trying to make them more interactive. In such circumstances, information and communication technologies (ICT) represent an adequate educational transformation technology because they provide applications and tools to help professors integrate the traditional teaching method into a state-of-the-art ICT-based effective education system [
23]. HEI professors can access the recently published material in an intelligent ICT education system and break down the learning outline into activities and lessons in order to gain more content consolidation and rehearsal. The idea is that interactive lectures keep students motivated and satisfy their learning curiosity [
24]. However, HEIs never took this combination of education and an intelligent ICT education system seriously. HEIs did not fully integrate the ICT into their education systems, which was concluded during the current world pandemic, COVID-19.
In recent years, humanity is facing a new challenge in the form of COVID-19. Most of the HEIs around the world are closed. This pandemic is forcing ICT into the limelight more than ever in order to adapt and help HEIs’ educational needs. ICT provides a medium by which HEI professors, students, and other education community members can interact and improve the education system from the class level to the level of the national education sector. Having this in mind, the purpose of this paper is to define an integrative model of SBE related to ICT support, quality and leadership, and their impact on SBE in a transition economy. Transition economies are characteristic of countries that are in the process of moving or have recently moved from a centrally planned economic system to a market-driven system [
25], and involve concepts such as the knowledge economy, digital economy and sustainable economy. The term is predominantly related to China, Eastern European countries and the former Soviet countries [
26].
In this paper, the authors apply EFQM as a base research model. Following their previous research [
27] on quality, ICT, leadership, process maturity, resilience, supply chain management, competitiveness, sustainability, SBE, and other aspects, an integrative meta model with the appropriate set of methodologies, techniques and tools are used. In this paper, the authors show some results of the impact of ICT support, quality (of processes, products and services) and leadership on the SBE as the dependent variable.
In the referent literature, partial relationships among variables and each variable structure have been analysed differently. The impact of quality based on the results of people, processes, products and services is recognised in the EFQM model in order to primarily achieve stakeholders’ requirements.
Additional quality management principles related to leadership, management, partnership and resources [
28,
29] are included in the analysis. Therefore, it is necessary to consider all of those principles as variables in a newly proposed model.
The impact of ICT on HEIs’ business results has been investigated extensively in the last twenty years, especially because it enables social interaction through various channels [
30,
31], especially in COVID-19 pandemic conditions. However, it depends on many factors, including the business environment, innovation culture, knowledge and team engineering [
30,
32,
33].
The impact of leadership on HEIs’ business results has been analysed on the executive level, middle management level, team level and student level [
1,
34]. However, this variable has not been investigated enough for transition economies, and it is an additional challenge for the research.
This paper is structured into five chapters. After the introduction, a review of different closely related works which are relevant to the aim of this paper and its hypotheses is presented in the second chapter. In the third part of the paper, an integrative model of the SBE, based on the EFQM model, is presented along with the definition of the structure, relations, regression functions and variables. The sample structure of the HEIs in Serbia and Russia, and the model verification results based on the significance of the proposed model’s relations are presented in the fourth chapter. In this chapter, the authors also analyse the gap between the benchmarked level of SBE and one scenario for its advancement through the improvement of ICT support, leadership, quality and strategy. At the end of the paper, the conclusions are presented relating to the level, relationships and the possibility of improving SBE in HEI organisations.
3. Methodology
The methodology of this study required the use of a quantitative self-assessment questionnaire applied research approach because it focuses on analysing and evaluating several variables and exploring their relationships. In addition, the quantitative approach allowed comparisons between the SBE of several HEIs.
The research questions were as follows: (1) To what extent is the EFQM model appropriate for HEIs? (2) Is it possible to extract ICT support from enablers in the EFQM model and find its impact on sustainable business excellence in HEIs? (3) Is it possible to use EFQM criteria for the assessment of the possibility of improving sustainable business excellence in HEIs? (4) Which factors in the extended EFQM model have the highest impact on sustainable business excellence in HEIs? (5) To what extent is the proposed model applicable in HEIs? The SBE influencing criteria of leadership, quality and ICT support were the independent variables in this research.
Statistical methods were used to review and analyse the results of the data from the questionnaires. This approach enabled greater focus on each SBE variable type in order to generate detailed and insightful conclusions.
The data was the data collected and entered into the databases. After defining the variables, the database data was imported into the statistical data processing program (IBM SPSS v.21). The following methods were used in the research during the preparation of this paper: a comparative analysis from domestic and foreign literature; quality engineering methods; and a descriptive analysis of the leadership, quality, and ICT support influencing SBE in the considered HEIs. In addition, statistical techniques and SPSS software for multi regression analysis were used for the data analysis.
The process of model development is defined according to the philosophy of science [
93]. In this research, the authors started from the previous research related to the EFQM model criteria, and according to a new role in HEIs they added ICT support. For the research question analysis, the authors used the following steps: (1) a conceptual modelling method for the development of the base model [
94,
95]; (2) a method of modelling SBE based on the EFQM excellence model; (3) statistical methods (IBM SPSS v.2019); (4) an expert assessment method based on appropriate questionnaires; and (5) a simulation method of complex dynamic systems [
96]. The literature sources in the previous 20 years were more concerned with some criteria of existing BE models without sustainability. Our crucial novelty is related to the separated impact of the ICT needed for future innovative HEIs, the simulation of the critical factors’ impacts and finding the optimal way to enhance SBE.
For the statistical analysis, the authors selected 32 HEIs in Serbia and 45 HEIs in Russia. Questionnaires were sent to the relevant people in charge of the management of the HEIs. As a response, 17 HEIs in Serbia and 21 HEIs in Russia filled out the questionnaires received. In this way, the sample covered 38 HEIs.
The HEIs in both of the considered countries are obligated to apply a process of accreditation and quality improvement. A base for this process is a report of self-assessment filed by students, staff, and other mentioned stakeholders. These self-assessment reports are defined and reported to the management in order to inform universities and the governmental commission of accreditation on the quality of the HEIs, funded by the Ministry of Education. According to [
97], self-assessment is a suitable methodology because it leads to the staff themselves identifying improvement possibilities and improvement actions. Furthermore, Zink [
98] and Karapetrovic and Willborn [
99] agreed that self-assessment is a powerful management tool, and that it enables a direction for continuous improvement initiatives in key performance areas. According to the stated facts, the research is based on a self-assessment questionnaire based on the official EFQM questionnaire and ICT support grounds.
The EFQM business excellence model (
Figure 1) has been defined as the development model (
Figure 2) based on conceptual modelling techniques while respecting the models defined according to the hypotheses.
In this model, 23 relations associated with hypotheses were identified (
Figure 3). Relation R1 is linked to the impact of general leadership on the effectiveness of the strategy, in which the executive and middle management play the dominant role. Other human resources will also affect the strategy, the level of partnership, and resources, and it affects the ICT leadership, but this is not included in the model. Relation R2 refers to the impact of leadership on human resources in companies (people). It is based on the Leader–Member Exchange (LMX) theory [
70].
Relation R3a is related to the impact of leadership on partnership and resources, based on a critical leadership role to establish internal and external communication channels, and to direct employees to continuously create and perform an effective value chain [
100]. Relation R3b is associated with the impact of leadership on quality (processes, products and services), while relation R4 is essential for the research. It is related to the impact of ICT support on the quality of processes, products and services. In this paper, this relationship is separately analysed because of the increasing importance of the application of ICT in the process of e-learning during the COVID 19 pandemic [
101]. Relation R5a is defined to introduce ICT support’s impact on strategy. Relation R6 is related to the impact of leadership on ICT support, based on the Lean Six Sigma framework for quality excellence in HEIs concept [
102], and HoshinKanry [
103,
104], in which all of the employees participate.
Processes, products and services have crucial roles in the EFQM model. These roles can be expressed in different ways. In this paper, the authors used the concept of quality. In this model, a variable is defined as the quality of processes, products and services. The value of this variable is defined as the arithmetic meaning of the process and service quality resulting from the processes in HEIs.
Relation R5b is conducted on the impact of strategy on people, and R5c is conducted on partnership and resources.
The previous analyses determined the impact of strategy on the development of partnerships and engagement resources. This impact is predominantly legitimate for HEIs in employability, flexible pedagogies, internationalisation, linking teaching and research, and retention and success [
105].
The impact of teaching resources is expressed through competence, motivation, and other aspects of human resource involvement. This impact in the ISO 9000 series is expressed through awareness, competence and motivation [
106,
107].
Relation R5d is related to the impact of the strategy on the processes, products and services. On the other hand, strategy affects the strategy process and services strategy components.
Relation R5f refers to the impact of partnership and resources on the processes, products and services. Partnership affects the effectiveness of the process, oriented towards external stakeholders and the level of resource utilisation in relation to the process’s effectiveness, and thus the quality of the products and services as results of the processes.
Relationships R7a and R7b present the influence of ICT support on the people and partnerships, and resources criteria, respectively.
Relation R8 refers to the impact of V6 (process, production and services) on V7 (people results) and, in particular, on teaching staff satisfaction, motivation and loyalty. It is covered by international standards ISO 10,002 and ISO 18001, and other authors [
108].
Relation R9 refers to the impact of V6 (process, production and services) on V8 (customer/students results). This impact is the most investigated research area related to quality as “a measure of satisfaction” [
109].
Relation R10 shows the impact of the processes, products and services on society results. This impact is mainly described in the ISO 14000, ISO 26000, ISO 28,000 and ISO 50,000 standards, and according to the authors of [
110], too.
Variables V7, V8, and V9 impact variable V10 (business results), and are represented through relations R11a, R11b and R11c.
The other considered relationships imply the impact of people criteria (R12) and partnership and resources (R13) on people results, and the impact of partnership and resources on customer (R14) and on society results (R15).
The directions of the introduced research data direction relations are derived according to input information from the literature and the EFQM BE model. In short, leadership is the engine, the driver and soul of all of the aspects of the quality system [
67] (derived relations R1, R2, R3a, R3b, R6). In the centre of higher education, the overall vision may be demonstrated using clear goals shared by all: professors, students and managers. These goals must take shape in all of the activities of HEIs via the strategic planning process [
111] (derived relations R5b, R5c, R5d). The appropriate personnel recruitment and selection policy, and a workforce trained, involved, and committed to quality and to the improvement of the organisation’s activities must affect the correct performance and improve the organisation’s critical processes. This leads to the achievement of better results (derived relations R8, R9, R10, R12). Despite this, HEIs, like any other organisation, must optimise the scarce resources they have and appropriately manage the suppliers of specific inputs, representing a high cost in budgetary terms [
112]. This will lead to the better and more efficient management of their processes or critical activities and results. ICT transformation is revolutionising every sector, bringing significant performance improvement to the work of employees, strategy implementation, and relations with partners [
56] (derived relations R5a, R7a, R7b). Finally, the underlying idea in the EFQM model is that customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction and society have a beneficial impact to produce excellent overall business results [
113] (derived relations R11a, R11b, R11c).
Based on this model, the research methodology was developed and divided into four stages:
Based on self-assessment, the analysis of the questionnaires to determine baseline variables V1–V10 and the regression coefficient relationships between them was performed.
After eliminating the non-significant relationships in the base model, the final research model was determined and confirmed for the considered sample.
After eliminating the non-significant relationships, the final model was determined, which became the basis for the simulation.
For simulation purposes in this model, positive impacts are assumed for any relationship of the simulation model, i.e., increasing the values of the cause will increase the values of the consequences. By applying statistical analysis, it is possible to determine the impact, the direction of the impact (positive or negative), and the correlation coefficients. Based on the literature recommendations, a thesis that the relationships are significant if the value of Pearson’s correlation coefficient is greater than 0.4 can be adopted.
During the simulation process, variables V1 (leadership), V5 (ICT support) and V6 (process, products and services) were increased, respectively, by 10%, 20% and 30% compared to the previously determined mean values of variables V1–V10. The simulations were used to perceive a possible increase in SBE according to the EFQM model equation:
6. Conclusions
This paper aimed to examine issues in implementing a modified EFQM excellence model for self-assessment within HEIs in Serbia and Russia in order to determine sustainable excellence, because achieving sustainable excellence has become a condition for survival in the global economy. It was perceived that the use of the EFQM excellence model’s self-assessment in the public sector, particularly the higher education field, has lagged behind that in the private sector. This was somewhat because of the lag in adapting the EFQM excellence model for public sector use, and due to the lack of pressure to respond to customers through continuous improvement in the public sector when compared with the private sector. However, in terms of constraints, especially financial resources, the solution should be in “soft” factors. In this paper, the authors tested the possible impact of ICT support, leadership and quality, and other influential factors of SBE.
The research has a theoretical and empirical character. Regarding the theoretical results presented, the integrative SBE model, based on the EFQM model, was developed using complex modelling and dynamic system techniques. The practical implication of the research is to determine the impact level of the ICT support, leadership, quality (of the process, the products and the services), and strategy variables on HEI SBE in a proposed model.
Consequently, the synergistic influence of the independent variables on SBE as a dependent variable was identified. This means that the authors of this paper needed to measure this synergic effect of ICT, quality and leadership, and their impact on HEI SBE’s net benefit.
A sample of 38 HEIs from Serbia and Russia was formed in order to confirm the possibility of SBE achievement in the higher education field through the influence of ICT support, leadership and quality variable components. The research performed in Serbian and Russian HEIs demonstrated the robustness of the model and the possibility of the improvement of the dependent variable, SBE, with a small amount of investment in undependable variables: ICT support, leadership and quality.
What was found based on the responses and from the statistical analysis performed using the SPSS software package, IBM, was:
the average of the model variables (63.27–80.49) and their variance (15.65–26.65%) was satisfactory;
there were correlations among the variables in the model range from 0.587 to 0.828;
this was used as a starting point to form the basic model, including the relationship with a correlation of 0.4, which is essential for simulation in the overall model;
based on the prior established mean value of BE of the company in the observed sample of 677 points, which was more than was expected for transition conditions in Serbia;
through the variation of the variables leadership (V1), ICT support (V5), and quality (V6) by, respectively, 10, 20 and 30%, a new (expected) value of BE could be calculated. It can be increased up to 8.27%, 8.04% and 13.38% iteratively, which is an essential source of corporate competitiveness.
According to the analysis of the data, the questionnaire and the statistical analysis, it was shown that self-assessment allows HEIs to identify their strengths and the areas in which improvements can be made, and then to plan improvement actions. The results show that HEIs can use self-assessment as a tool for continuous improvement planning, as it is in the business sector. However, integrating the EFQM excellence model’s self-assessment into higher education presents challenges for those tasked with its incorporation. The early signs are that EFQM model self-assessment can help to produce a more customer-oriented culture in HEIs, through ICT support, leadership and quality criteria enhancement.
This HEI SBE model’s limitations have to be stressed. First of all, this is a descriptive study, and so the causal relationship interpretation between the methods described and the results obtained is restricted. Other limitations are associated with the referent modified EFQM model, the structure of the variables, and the sample size. It is difficult to extrapolate the lessons learnt from a particular HEI to other situations while avoiding over-generalisations. From the angle of the modified model limitation, this can be overcome by including the other variations of SBE models and their integration. The values of variables are defined as single values according to the EFQM model with the response to appropriate questions. In further research, the sample size will undoubtedly be increased in the coming period, considering the HEIs’ structures and a regional aspect. This regional aspect is also related to differences in sectors.
In future research, the emphasis will be on the prevailing constraints, extending the SBE model, comparative analyses of countries in a transition economy, impact analysis, and other variables affecting operational excellence, sustainability and enterprise competitiveness.