Performance Indicators in Higher Education Institutions: the role of Corporate Social Responsibility

• Autor(a) principal: Abreu, Rute
• Data de Publicação: 2008
• Outros Autores: David, Fátima, Carreira, Francisco, Gonçalves, Cidalina
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10314/996
• topic: Performance Indicators; Higher Education; Accounting; Portugal

It is more and more important understand that resources and costs must be correctly managed in the Higher Education Institutions (HEI). For this reason, the performance obtained by each HEI requires to meet the expectations and accomplish their objectives. Thus, efficiency and effectiveness of resources are questioned above all, because they are classified as public sector services. But, more problematic is the economic measurement, because of the resemblance with the same concept in the private sector that has prevailed within these entities of the public sector. This research is focus in entities of the public sector, in general, and in HEI, in particular. It analyzes accountability that supplies relevant information for decision making and allowing diversified analyses about resources and costs. Furthermore, it promotes a sensitivity analysis, to evaluate the impact of decisions taken in this environment, always supported on the activity plan implementation that is regularly assessed and controlled in details and viewed as a more rational use of available resources and control by costs. Effectively, the role of accountability in the HEI information system is more crucial as na essential contribution during several stages of the decision making process. In this context, the accounting information system provides and allows to disclosure information and several performance indicators about resources and costs. Also, it measures efficiency, effectiveness and economy as strategic benefits of the new public sector management adopted by HEI. This research presents and debates the performance indicators as a basis to discuss and assess the decision making process on the HEI. It was used the case study of the Social Action Services of the Polytechnic Institute of Setubal (SAS/IPS - Portugal) that financial and social aid the students activities. The results of the research show accountability limitations, but it develops the HEI performance as a source of indispensable and fundamental information for the decision making process. Additionally, it shows that one of the performance indicators in HEI is the level of the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) that has a particular role to develop with view a sustainable development of these institutions and the society.