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Considering a micro performance perspective, the purpose of this paper is to analyze whether and to what extent the adoption of better performance management systems could improve the performance levels of a public university.

With reference to a period of four years (2011-2014), the quality of performance management systems of 29 Italian universities (response rate: 48 percent) was examined and the possible effects on performance levels of these institutions were analyzed by means of statistical methodologies (multiple regression analysis). Outcome indicators were considered.

The findings indicate the need to go further “measurement,” and to take care of performance “management,” especially in complex organizations as universities, where academicians identify themselves more with their professions than with the organization and where technicians and administrative employees might look at the performance-based reform with “bureaucratic eyes.” A fruitful cooperation between the professional soul and the bureaucratic one is paramount.

Studies which analyze organizational factors that could affect the adoption and implementation of performance management systems are rare, and use in prevalence qualitative methods or refer to machine bureaucracies, not many to professional ones as public universities. Moreover, the performance management literature in a public university context deepens the topic of the selection of KPIs and the focus is mainly on macro performance or on management tools for gathering and analyzing performance measures.

The purpose of this study is to understand the efforts of key social actors in influencing the reform of Iranian public universities budgeting system, from incremental to performance-based budgeting (PBB), the tensions that arose as competing efforts of institutional change were undertaken, and ultimately the impact of these efforts on the extent to which the Iranian government transitioned to a system of PBB in public universities.

Data comprises of semi-structured interviews with managers and experts involved in the budget setting process and an analysis of budgetary policy documents, reports and archival material such as legislation. An institutional work lens is employed to interpret the findings.

While actors advocating the change were engaged in institutional work directed at disrupting the old budgetary rules by disassociating the rules moral foundations and creating new budgetary rules (through new legislation), universities undertook subtle resistance by engaging in extended evaluation of the new proposed PBB rules thereby maintaining the old budgetary rules. The reforms undertaken to introduce PBB in Iranian universities achieved minimal success whereby incremental budgeting continued to constitute by far a larger percentage of the budget allocation formula for university budgets. This finding illustrates change and continuity in university budgetary systems resulting from institutional work of actors competing to control the basis of resource allocation under the proposed PBB system by proposing contradicting models.

The findings highlight the importance of understanding the interplay of institutional work undertaken by competing social actors as they seek to advance their goals in shaping budgetary reforms in the public-sector. Such an understanding may inform policy makers who intend to introduce major reforms in public-sector budgeting approaches.

Unlike prior studies that largely focused on how organization-level budgeting practices responded to changes in public budgeting rules (i.e. at the site of implementation of the rules), this paper highlights how strategies of change and resistance are played out at the site of setting budgetary norms.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between the participation in commercially- and socially-oriented Academics' Societal Engagement (ASE) activities, partnership choices, and funding preferences of academics working in public and private universities from Chile and Turkey. Chile represents a private-dominant higher education system (HES), while Turkey is public-dominant. This article presents the results of an international survey, the Academic Profession in Knowledge-based Society (APIKS), applied to academics from over 20 countries, including Chile and Turkey.

Through a quantitative analysis the authors analyse how the dominant institutional type influences ASE activities, partnership choices, and funding preferences.

Results from the analysis show that being part of a public or private university does not solely explain the activity type that academics engage with. Moreover, the rate of Chilean academics participating in ASE activities is more than twice that of Turkish academics regardless of the public-private distinction.

Further research about the academic life and ASE activities using a qualitative approach can complement this study. Applying further in-depth interviews to obtain more information from external partners can provide different perspectives and help to better understand the ASE activities. Additional analysis could compare external activities by higher education institution (HEI) type regarding vocational/technical centres since the Chilean and Turkish private HEIs included in this study received a mix of public-private funds and are considered not-for-profit, so extending this research to include for-profit private HEIs may be worthwhile for additional comparison.

More support and funding for the development of commercially-oriented ASE activities is recommended for Chile and Turkey's HES. In Turkey, a law-update in 2017 facilitates the establishment of technology transfer offices (TTOs) as companies within universities (Author, 2019). Though it is too early to know its effects, a positive contribution is anticipated. Centred Chile's private dominant HES, it would be appropriate for this type of system to also create different support structures to incentivise socially-oriented external activities and partnership opportunities. As done in other universities, the establishment of a community engagement office may provide professional guidance for partnership creations. Regardless of a country's HE public/private dominance, diverse sources of funding and support mechanisms can also be created to strengthen organisational and financial autonomy facilitating academics' participation in ASE activities. For example, universities can develop institutional policies to support academic establishment, lead or join in administration of non-governmental organisations, or form institutional media to deliver academics' viewpoints of social issues to the larger and non-academic audience. University managers should also empower the connection between academics and industry and business sector through different organisational structures such as Research Office, Science Park Incubators, Career Centre, while guiding and financially supporting academics' research commercialisation by their TTO experience and sources.

The literature has studied the public-private higher education distinction in vast aspects, however, no empirical studies have explored it concerning ASE. Chile and Turkey propose interesting cases since they represent opposite ends considering the public-private predominance of higher education systems. Turkey exhibits a heavy public predominance, whereas Chile has a significantly strong private system.

This paper aims to investigate the relation between the creditworthiness of US institutions of higher education and their student selectivity (i.e. demand and quality).

The authors study whether the impact of student selectivity differs across public vs private universities; across the credit quality of the given public university’s state; and across the level of state appropriations for the given public university.

The authors find that student quality and demand measures are significantly associated with their corresponding institution’s creditworthiness, especially for private universities.

For public universities the association is weak and, contrary to the expectations, does not depend on the state credit quality or level of state funding. The findings are robust to the inclusion of control variables.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the construct of online public engagement by identifying the modalities universities use to give visibility to their approach on institutional websites.

An exploratory factor analysis outlined the principle dimensions that explain online public engagement starting from the analysis of a sample of American and English universities. To finish, a t-test shows the differences in the approaches to online public engagement in the sample universities.

The results of this analysis show that the construct of public engagement used for online communication has been investigated through three dimensions and that the American and English universities have different approaches in its declination.

The analysis was conducted on a sample of American and English universities; however the study underlines the fact that the traditional approaches to public engagement can assume different connotations for online communication.

Coherent organization of the online communication of public engagement activities can reinforce the perception of the university in the eyes of both internal and external stakeholders. For this reason, research offers interesting input for evaluating which kind of strategy should be adopted for online public engagement in line with the desired positioning and as defined by the governing bodies of the university institutions. However, the universities still need to institutionalize public engagement.

This work constitutes the first attempt to investigate public engagement in the university context through the web, using quantitative methodologies in order to highlight the different strategic orientations and operative declinations.

The purpose of this paper is to extend existing research on stakeholder orientation (SO) on higher education institutions (HEIs) by segmenting Spanish public universities based on their perceived levels of SO and describing the profiles of the different segments identified. Given that being stakeholder-oriented, as well as being market-oriented, is a matter of degree and not an absolute condition, the authors expect to find heterogeneity among public universities in terms of their levels of SO.

The authors designed a mail survey that was e-mailed to all managers of Spanish public universities, resulting in 795 usable questionnaires. A latent segmentation methodology was used to define the segmentation and profiling of the individuals.

Through latent class segmentation analysis, two clusters were identified: high stakeholder-oriented universities (HSOs) and low stakeholder-oriented universities (LSOs). Interestingly, HSOs universities perceive themselves to have greater organisational complexity and a lower level of reputation than LSOs, but that they are more active in terms of resource acquisition. LSOs universities are larger than HSOs and have a superior ranking.

This study will help university managers by providing useful information that will enable them to be more sensitive to the wants and needs of their stakeholders. It will also assist policy-makers who wish to support strategic decisions to promote differentiation among public universities, avoiding the mimetic effect.

Latent class segmentation can be a very useful technique to segment public universities based on their SO. Wherever heterogeneity exists, the latent class analysis will facilitate identification of the clusters of public universities and the profile of these different clusters according to their level of SO (either responsive or proactive).

A mission statement is the central axis of any organization and the cornerstone of its strategic planning. Universities have implemented this tool to define, among other things, its identity; however, the legal nature and functions of the mission statement have not been determined. In this article, the authors analyze the differences in the university mission statements of public and private higher education institutions in relation to the mission functions proposed by the 1992 legislation on higher education in Colombia – Law 30 – involving teaching, research, extension and social projection and internationalization.

Through content analysis, the authors analyze the mission statements of two groups of institutions that make up the totality of universities in Colombia – 32 public and 53 private universities. The analysis is conducted along the four dimensions defined by the law as comprising the higher education mission, i.e. teaching, research, extension and social projection, and internationalization, due to its importance in the high-quality institutional accreditation process.

Based on the differences identified in the mission statements, the authors establish the university functions and determine how they give back to society in their legal capacity as public or private institutions.

This research scenario is appropriate for answering research questions related to whether there are differences in the strategies of Colombian public and private universities based on their mission statements. Although the Colombian higher education system includes various types of tertiary institutions, only universities are included in the study.

Research has shown that regardless of their legal nature, based on their mission statements, Colombian universities are mainly geared towards teaching. However, when comparing additional dimensions, private universities are less involved in research processes and more focused on activities related to social impact than are public universities. Additionally, private universities are more engaged in internationalization than are public institutions, with mission statements focused on both national and international accreditation processes.

The results of this research are intended to help society comprehend the differences between public and private universities in Colombia based on mission statements, which can contribute to understanding, among other factors, the academic programs offered by universities and how they should guide their activities.

This is the first such study in Colombia, a country that provides higher education through public and private institutions in very similar proportions, that analyses the differences in university mission statements and whose findings contribute to understanding whether universities are strategically oriented towards their own established policies or to contributing to the development of new public policies aimed at supporting the country's development process.

There is currently limited knowledge of the strategic organizational routines such as strategic planning and benchmarking of universities in the Western Balkans (WB). Thus the purpose of this paper is to map perceptions and concerns of institutional leadership about these routines within the public and private universities in the region.

An online survey targeting all public and private universities in the WB was sent to the rector's and president's office. The survey data were analyzed with descriptive statistical methods, calculating frequencies, and means.

Data revealed that the majority of both public and private universities have implemented strategic planning. Analysis of strategic planning between private and public universities indicated that averages scores were slightly higher in the private rather than the public universities. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats analysis was among the statements that received higher scores (perceptions about implementation) from both types of universities. The relatively low scores from both types of institutions concerning perceived implementation and importance of benchmarking might imply that WB universities achieve their goals in a less competitive environment.

The significance of the paper lies in the fact that no existing studies have investigated strategic planning and benchmarking in the WB universities. To be able to build a potential baseline for further research, including the possibility for more comparative research both within and beyond the region, the selection of routines was taken from the US Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for Performance Excellence in Education. This study contributes to the body of research for literature about strategic organizational routines and strategy-as-practice.

The purpose of this paper is to synthesize insights from previous accounting, performance measurement (PM) and accountability research into the rapidly emerging field of knowledge-intensive public organizations (KIPOs). In so doing, it draws upon insights from previous literature and other papers included in this special issue of Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal.

The paper reviews academic analysis and insights provided in the academic literature on accounting, PM and accountability changes in KIPOs, such as universities and healthcare organizations, and paves the way for future research in this area.

The literature review shows that a growing number of studies are focusing on the hybridization of different KIPOs, not only in terms of accounting tools (e.g. performance indicators, budgeting and reporting) but also in relation to individual actors (e.g. professionals and managers) that may have divergent values and thus act according to multiple logics. It highlights many areas in which further robust academic research is needed to guide developments of hybrid organizations in policy and practice.

This paper provides academics, regulators and decision makers with relevant insights into issues and aspects of accounting, PM and accountability in hybrid organizations that need further theoretical development and empirical evidence to help inform improvements in policy and practice.

The paper provides the growing number of academic researchers in this emerging area with a literature review and agenda upon which they can build their research.

The aim of this study is to build upon Jain et al.'s (2007) work by investigating the knowledge-sharing barriers and strategies of academic staff in public and private universities in Malaysia which have received relatively little research attention to date.

A survey of 502 questionnaires was collected on both public and private universities in Malaysia. Data were analysed using SPSS.

The overall findings show that private universities are more effective and are more willing to share knowledge. Linking knowledge sharing with non-monetary rewards and fair performance appraisals are strongly recommended in private universities, while monetary rewards, recognitions, publication of knowledge on websites and newsletters and the use of appropriate technology tools and systems are strongly recommended in public universities.

Top management in Malaysian public and private universities must play their role and put in more effort to ensure academics have the proper platform and support to share their knowledge.

This study is perhaps one of the first to address the comparison between knowledge sharing among lecturers in private and public universities in Malaysia.