Investigation of the relationship between academic leadership, quality and organizational memory in higher education

The general purpose of the research is to test the model that determines the structural relationships between academic leadership, quality and organizational memory of academics working in universities. For this purpose, the model developed by utilizing the literature on academic leadership, quality and organizational memory was tested. The population of the research consisted of 184,566 academics working at 207 universities in Turkey in the 2022-2023 academic year. The sample group of the research was selected from 42 universities, covering all 12 higher education level regions in Turkey, and consisted of 65,918 academics working in these universities. The data of the study were collected with ready-made scales and scales developed by the researcher. Correlation was used to analyze the collected data, confirmatory factor analysis was used to determine the construct validity of the scales, and path analysis was used to test the structural equation models created. The data obtained in the research were analyzed using SPSS 29 and AMOS 28 programs. As a result of the structural model, academic leadership has a positive effect on organizational memory, and organizational memory has a positive effect on quality in higher education. Academic leadership has a direct and indirect impact on quality in higher education. As academics' perception of academic leadership increases, their perception of quality in higher education also increases. While academic leadership increases the perception of quality in higher education, it also achieves this effect by increasing the level of organizational memory. The research was conducted to understand the structural relationships between academic leadership, quality and organizational memory perceptions of academics working in higher education institutions. For this purpose, a model was developed regarding academics' perceptions of academic leadership, quality and organizational memory. With the analysis of this model, it was concluded that the perception of academic leadership affects the perception of quality, and the perception of quality affects the perception of organizational memory. In order to increase quality, higher education institutions should create programs that develop academic leadership skills and strategies that will create organizational memory.