The progressive reduction of public resources for higher education has led many governments to rethink their organizations to become more managerial, altering the balance between central governments and academic institutions, and increasing the decentralization of responsibilities. In this context, an accountability system becomes fundamental, and evaluation of teaching acquires two main purposesthe external certification of results achieved by a single university and the scientific support of the decisional process. This paper focuses on the second aspect, investigating the principal drivers of students' satisfaction at Politecnico di Milano (Italy), by analyzing the findings of the teaching quality survey in the academic year 2005-2006. It was found that students' evaluations are focused on `core' aspects of teaching, such as professors' abilities and clearness, and the provision of teaching support, providing evidence of the possibility to use these evaluations for really improving teaching activities. Based on these results, the paper suggests the use of students' evaluations for managerial purposes.

Evaluation of teaching, as done in Italian universities, can be read as a consequence of two phenomena—the growing demand for university training, and the establishment of a sort of university market. Proliferation of new universities, the consequent competition and the shortage of resources established the need for an `accountability system' in the institution, to manage the allocation of the resources according to the quality results achieved by each university. According to Barnabè and Riccaboni (2007) universities are under scrutiny as they are required to change rapidly. This process of reform has been leading to substantial changes in the role, the strategic focus, the modus operandi and even the core values of the universities. A way to foster and facilitate this transition in higher education is through the implementation of managerial methodologies and approaches, once exclusively adopted by the private sector. In general, this process has been defined as the `new public management' (Hood, 1995; Barzelay, 1999; and Gruening, 2001), but it has also been labeled with many different terms like managerialization, corporatization, commercialization marketi-zation, customerization, modernization, commodification, rationalization, professiona-lization, accountingization (Willmott, 1995; Meek and Wood, 1998; Currie and Vidovich, 2000; Meek, 2000; Boyce, 2002; Czarniawska and Genell, 2002; Davies and Thomas, 2002; Lawrence and Sharma, 2002; Neumann and Guthrie, 2002; Parker, 2002; Saravanamuthu and Tinker, 2002; Singh, 2002; Lapsley and Miller, 2004; and Roberts, 2004). To sum up, a trend to reorganize and restructure modern universities as entrepreneurial universities is emerging (Meek, 2000, p. 28; and Etzkowitz, 2003, p. 109).

Evaluation of teaching, Italian universities, university market, accountability system, strategic focus, managerial methodologies, new public management, managerialization, corporatization, commercialization marketi-zation, customerization, modernization, commodification, rationalization, professiona-lization, accountingization, CNVSU, Comitato Nazionale per la Valutazione del Sistema Universitario, National Evaluation Committee, University Sector.