One major means to address stakeholder pressures concerning the improvement of the higher education services is the use of Business Excellence Models (BEMS) which attracted attention of both academics and practitioners. In particular, this study aims to assess the applying of the leadership criterion in the higher education institutions according to European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence Model. The study draws upon Common Assessment Framework (CAF) 2013 and EFQM 2013 model as references to measure the key leadership dimensions. Using empirical data based on a large-scale survey among employees within Slovenian higher education institutions (HEIS) this paper utilized the Partial Least Squares Path Modeling (PLS-PM) in order to investigate the relationships between leadership dimensions and influential factors regarding the adoption of the EFQM model in HEIS. The results showed that two leadership dimensions directly influence the implementation enablers (i.e. the perception of the employees regarding the influence of the leadership dimensions on the EFQM Excellence Model implementation), while other dimension indirectly influence the implementation enablers. The main conclusion is that a greater engagement in leadership criterion serves as a driving force of the EFQM Excellence model adoption in HEIS. The paper contributes to an ongoing discussion of a need of excellence models being adapted in higher education institutions. Hence, by investigating the leadership criterion of the EFQM Excellence Model, this study reinforces previous findings highlighting the need to integrate quality management perspective within the frame of higher education sector
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