The article considers the process of creating quality improvement in higher education institutions from the point of view of current organisational theory and social-science modelling techniques. The author considers the higher education institution as a functioning complex of rules, norms and other organisational features and reviews the social mechanisms and processes through which agencies can stimulate quality improvement. The article provides a few examples of how these social processes might be modelled using social simulation techniques, including agent-based models, discrete event simulation and other modelling techniques developed for representing complex social processes of coordination and cooperation. A better representation of universities as complexes of organisations will support more effective quality improvement by higher education leaders and external agencies.