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The purpose of this paper is to examine the efficiency of the Colombian higher education system, differentiating between public and private universities.

A data envelopment analysis (DEA) model is applied to separately and jointly evaluate the teaching and research efficiencies of universities. The empirical application considers a sample of 78 Colombian universities across the period 2015–2017. A two-stage DEA is performed in which DEA scores are first evaluated and then regressed on potential covariates via truncated regression.

Public universities outperform their private counterparts in terms of teaching and research efficiency, whereas private universities have higher global efficiency. Furthermore, the proportion of PhD faculty positively impacts all dimensions of efficiency and in fact is the only variable improving research efficiency.

First, the data do not permit a direct analysis of the impact of improvements in resources or capabilities on knowledge transfer. Second, policies and their efficiency may be influenced by differences in cultural contexts, regulatory frameworks and knowledge transfer activities. Finally, the country specificity of this research study calls for obvious caution when generalizing and interpreting its findings.

The analysis of this data set will help decision and policy makers identify resources that are used efficiently by universities and interventions for improving resource management by inefficient universities.

Few studies have addressed the efficiency of higher education in developing economies. This paper contributes to the literature by applying a two-stage methodological approach to estimate the efficiency of Colombian universities and provide a better understanding of the factors driving university efficiency.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between intellectual capital (IC) and performance of public universities in emerging countries in order to identify patterns and provide recommendations that may turn the universities’ IC into development opportunities, in terms of research, innovation, and education.

The analysis targeted the whole population of the public universities in the Republic of Colombia. A cluster analysis, based on five performance variables, has been conducted. Then, the IC of the universities pertaining to the three resulting clusters has been compared. Subsequently, for each performance variable, the IC of above-average and below-average universities has been benchmarked.

The results of this study show how different aspects of IC are associated with University performance. Among the many, the authors found that universities should achieve a critical mass to obtain outstanding research and innovation results. The findings also identify the particular importance of both students and scholars’ international mobility programs for most of the performance variables.

This study provides a baseline for the assessment of the impact on society of the IC available in the universities of emerging countries. The application may serve as a guide in the choice of public policies, dedicated to the strengthening of the universities’ IC in order to improve their performance.

This paper proposes an innovative model to analyze the relationship between IC and university performance in emerging countries. The model identifies the association between the IC accrued in the universities and their capability of transferring it to the society under the form of science, innovation, and education.

This research is being developed by two interinstitutional, research groups. The aim is to find and disseminate good practices of organizational models of teaching and learning in Colombian public universities. Initially started in the vision of Burton Clark (1921–2009), who defined the concept of “innovation” as “a voluntary effort for organizing the institution that requires a very special activity and energy” (Clark, 1998, p. 25), the groups have found three more characteristics that ought to be studied through a Participatory Action Research Model. Colombia’s Governments have had through the years a determination for social inclusion through education. In this context, Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia (UNAD) is considered to be an entrepreneurial and innovative university, so its organization and goals are presented. Studying the best university practices of different countries creates progress toward the goal of global education.

The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical evidence on the relationships between the dimensions of intellectual capital (IC) and the generation of knowledge in public universities.

An online survey was developed and administered in Colombia. A total of 209 researchers participated in the study. Data were collected through IC measurements concerning the research mission of the universities. Scientific publications from the respondents and the citations received were taken as proxies for the generation of knowledge. To test the hypotheses, structural equation modeling was used.

Hypotheses proposing a positive association between the dimensions of IC, namely, human capital, structural capital, and relational capital, and the generation of knowledge were tested. The findings highlight that human capital is indirectly and positively related to the generation of knowledge through relational capital, as well as through the path of structural capital-relational capital.

The study suggests that directors of research at universities could improve the results of this activity by analyzing and understanding the dimensions of IC that contribute to the development of scientific capacities and the generation of knowledge.

This is one of the first studies that has examined the interrelationships between the dimensions of IC at universities and the generation of knowledge.

Peer-reviewed indexable journals have expanded in recent decades as a result, in part, of the value given to research productivity (measured through citations). Latin American journals have grown prompted by the open access (OA) movement, the emergence of regional repositories/indexes, and policies linking institutional rankings and faculty salaries/promotions to indexed publications. This study’s aim was to map the ways Chilean, Colombian, and Venezuelan universities support journal publication. This qualitative study uses Margison and Rhoades’ (2002) Glonacal Agency Heuristic to describe factors that shape higher education (i.e., global, national, and local dimensions), adding university as unit of analysis. Semi-structured in-depth interviews from a previous study, current institutional documents, and websites of 12 major universities from Chile, Venezuela, and Colombia conformed the data of the study. Besides the most prestigious global indexes (Web of Science and Scopus) three regional repositories/indexes, Latindex, SciELO, and RedALyC, have played an important role as countries link faculty salaries/promotions and university ranking systems to publications included in one or more of these services. Latindex collaborates with national science and technology agencies, SciELO has country chapters based at universities (Colombia and Venezuela), and RedALyC works with individual institutions and journals. At the national level, Chile has mechanisms to provide funding for the publication and/or upgrade of journals and incentives to institutions for publications in indexed journals. Colombia’s journal evaluation system Publindex links articles in indexed journals to salary increases in public universities, standard that is also used by private institutions to grant monetary incentives to faculty for publications. Venezuela used to have a funding and publication incentive system that was discontinued in the last decade. Latin American journals are mainly published by universities. Institutions in this study have implemented strategies to support journals such as institutional repositories, discontinuation of print journals, technology support for OA publication, and funding mechanisms.

The purpose of this study is to verify some relationships between entrepreneurial attitude, university environment, entrepreneurial culture and entrepreneurial training, which can be used to promote entrepreneurship among university students.

A sample of 3,005 questionnaires answered by students from ten universities in Colombia was gathered and partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was used for the analysis.

The results show that the more a student perceives an entrepreneurial culture and the more training he or she receives, the more entrepreneurial attitude he or she will have. Also, it was found that entrepreneurial culture has a positive effect on university environment, and the latter has a positive effect on entrepreneurial training.

The main limitation of this study was that only ten Colombian universities were sampled; therefore, general inferences cannot be made. Additionally, the variables investigated here may have not accurately measured the full scale of the entrepreneurship programmes in such universities or the way the culture of these institutions had a direct impact on students. Projects such as the Global University Entrepreneurial Spirit Students' Survey (GUESSS), which measure variables related to entrepreneurship at the university level, enable universities to shape their policies around this important topic. This study indicates that universities should offer training in entrepreneurial, problem-solving and communication skills to produce entrepreneurs who can better face current challenges.

Other studies have discussed entrepreneurial culture, but they usually deal with university environment, entrepreneurial training and entrepreneurial attitudes separately. This study integrates all these factors and measures the level of interaction between them.

In the past decade, intellectual capital (IC) measurement and reporting have been feeding scientific debate; however, only few studies address these issues together. The present research aims to provide an integrated view of the topics covered by the existing literature and to highlight the emerging research trends and set the agenda for future research.

This study develops a structured literature review (SLR) of the extant research concerned with IC measurement and reporting, using a comprehensive sample of 1,021 articles extracted from the Scopus database.

The findings of the SLR show that the existing literature focuses on seven research areas: IC and public sector; IC university and education; IC evaluation method; internal and external IC disclosure; IC and CSR; management of IC in organizations; other. Overall, findings indicate that IC measurement and reporting are highly researched topics that continue to attract the interests of scholars. Finally, the SLR analysis has allowed outlining a future research agenda, with particular reference to the IC evaluation method and internal and external IC disclosure research areas.

The main limitation of this research lies in the manual screening of relevant studies, which entails some degree of subjectivity. Furthermore, another limitation research could be considered the use of a single database (Scopus).

The present study brings potential contributions for scholars and practitioners. From a scholarly perspective, the paper provides a systematization of scientific contributions that have dealt with IC measurement and reporting. In particular, it contributes to the scholarly debate bringing into focus various IC measurement and reporting issues in the landscape of private and public organizations. Referring to practical implications, our research supports the strategic use of IC measurement and reporting as a key lever for improving the management of firms. Using an analytical framework that combines insights from the agency, stakeholder and legitimacy theories, this study highlights that IC reporting activity should be used strategically as a means to engage with all firm's stakeholders, in particular with a view to reducing information asymmetry and improving firm reputation.

Intellectual capital disclosure (ICD) in universities is gaining increasing attention, especially through the adoption of innovative technologies. Online media, as a relevant source of Big Data, is shifting ICD. The purpose of this paper is to explore how Big Data generated through online media, such as websites and platforms like Facebook, can be used as rich sources of data and viable disclosure channels for ICD in a university.

This is an exploratory case study, following the methodology in Yin (2014), that examines how online media data contributes to closing the ICD gap. The IC disclosed through different online media channels by a private university in Albania is analysed using Secundo et al.’s (2016) collective intelligence framework. The online data sources include the university’s website, Facebook page, periodic reports and statements outlining future goals.

What the authors discover in this research is that IC is an important part of how universities operate, and IC is communicated through social media, although unintentionally. However, this only serves to highlight the importance of IC, and if researchers want to discover IC and understand how it works in an organisation, they need to include social media and a prime resource for developing that understanding.

Most importantly, the findings add to a growing consensus that ICD researchers, and researchers in other management and accounting disciplines, who traditionally rely on annual corporate social responsibility and other periodic reports, they need to change their medium of analysis because these reports no longer can be relied on to understand IC and its impact on an organisation.

Online media tools and the advent of Big Data have created new opportunities for universities to disclose their IC information to stakeholders in a timely manner and to gain relevant insights into their impact on the society. The originality of the paper resides in the contribution of Big Data to the ICD research stream.

This study aimed to evaluate the relative efficiencies of the state universities in Sri Lanka from 2017 to 2019 and their capacity to enroll more students.

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) method was used to measure the relative efficiencies. Annual data on expenditure, academic staff, non-academic staff, student enrollments, graduate output and publications in indexed journals were used.

Results from both input oriented DEA and output oriented DEA showed that seven out of 15 (47%) state universities were constantly performing efficiently from 2017 to 2019. Well-established universities are apparently more efficient than emerging universities. Six universities were constantly inefficient. Excess staff and the deficiencies in enrollments, graduate output and publications were the main causes of the inefficiencies. In particular, the total enrollments can be increased by 23%.

The outcomes are thoroughly based on DEA with a selected set of variables and data. Owing to the limitations in the DEA method, variables and data, the results may not reflect the actual efficiencies of the universities. However, this study indicates that the universities can improve their relative efficiencies by accommodating more students and increasing research output.

This study is the first proper investigation of the relative efficiencies of the state universities in Sri Lanka using DEA. This is also the first quantitative assessment of the capacity of Sri Lankan Universities to increase student enrollments.