Gestión de la información y calidad de las instituciones universitarias: Un estudio empírico en Universidades de Chile

This article discusses the relation between information man agement and quality of university institutions. Information man agement is understood as a relevant dimension of quality since it allows an effective control of institutional processes in order to make decisions on the required adjustments and improvements, and also because information on universities and their outcomes is typically disclosed in a spontaneous manner only when it fits acknowledged quality parameters. In order to prove such state ments, we count on an empirical study on how universities in Chile diffuse information, and the evidence obtained is used as input for a regression model where the quality of universities, operationalized through the institutional accreditation results, enters as the dependent variable. Hence, we attempt to demon strate that information management represents a relevant dimen sion about the quality of universities. The model results in an explanatory capacity of 42%, which increases to 51% once the influence of one distorting case is isolated. This means that there is a trend that links information management with quality of uni versities. Additionally, the article describes the main differences in terms of the information disclosed by Chilean universities, in the sense that those universities that accumulate more prestige tend to be those that disseminate more information.