The Inadequate Information Model of Spanish Universities: The Relevance of Intellectual Capital...

The Inadequate Information Model of SpanishUniversities: The Relevance of Intellectual

Capital Disclosure

Yolanda Ramı�rez CórcolesDepartment of Accounting

Faculty of Economics and Business AdministrationPlaza de la Universidad, n� 1

Campus Universitario de AlbaceteUniversity of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain

02071 � Albacete, [email protected]

Published 20 August 2013

Abstract. The main aim of this study is to demonstrate howimportant it is for Spanish public universities to provide infor-mation on their intellectual capital in order to satisfy their users'information needs. To this end, we analysed the opinion held bythe members of the Social Councils regarding the need forSpanish public universities to publish information on their in-tellectual capital when presenting economic, ¯nancial and bud-getary information. The results of this research show extensivecriticism of the current accounting information model used bypublic universities in Spain. They also demonstrate a widespreadinterest in universities including information on their intellectualcapital with a view to increasing the relevance of the currentuniversity ¯nancial statements.

Keywords: Intellectual capital; disclosure; ¯nancial statements;universities.

1. Introduction

European higher education institutions are currently im-

mersed in a process of profound change, the intention of

which is to improve the e®ectiveness, e±ciency and

transparency of these institutions with the aim of con-

tributing to the development and improvement of the

competitiveness of the European economy (S�anchez and

Elena, 2007). Some of the most signi¯cant changes are:

new methods for measuring the performance and e±ciency

of universities; the creation of European-wide accredita-

tion agencies; new assessment processes and systems to

ensure quality which, in turn, strengthen transparency

and accounting statements; the institutionalisation of

new ¯nancing mechanisms; reforms of national legislation

to increase the level of universities' independence and

the implementation of new tools to improve internal

management.

Given this situation, the information transparency of

university institutions acquires even greater signi¯cance.

A need exists to conduct a profound reform and modern-

isation of the university system with regards to the pre-

sentation of information which takes into account the new

information demands of its users.

However, accounting in the public sector has tradi-

tionally been somewhat short-sighted since the tools of

transparency have always focused on ¯nancial and budget

information (Martín and Moneva, 2009), ignoring other

types of information such as data about the social re-

sponsibility of their activities (Melle, 2007) or the key

intangible elements in their value creation. Public uni-

versities are a prime example of this, since the information

provided focuses on guaranteeing ¯nancial control of the

organisation without paying attention to the needs of

other groups of interest (Martín, 2006). Gray (2006)

consider that the information supplied in traditional ¯-

nancial reports is not enough, highlighting the need to

establish more extensive communication and accounting

mechanisms which take into account the needs of the

di®erent groups of interest.

It is useful to remember that accounting research is

currently focused on the utility paradigm, which stresses

the need for accounting information to be truly relevant to

good decision making by its users. Consequently, given the

Journal of Information & Knowledge Management, Vol. 12, No. 3 (2013) 1350022 (17 pages)#.c World Scienti¯c Publishing Co.DOI: 10.1142/S0219649213500226

August 16, 2013 11:25:47am WSPC/188-JIKM 1350022 ISSN: 0219-6492FA1

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1142/S0219649213500226

new characteristics of the present socio-economic climate

of the European higher education sector, we believe that

universities' ¯nancial statements should provide all the

relevant information on their activities and the key factors

of their success — their intangible resources.

In this study, we will look at the ways in which the

traditional information systems are incomplete and we

will give proof of the opinion which exists among the users

of university accounting information regarding the need to

complete the content of the current university ¯nancial

statements by providing non-¯nancial information on

intellectual capital. The ultimate aim of this study is

to make accounting regulators aware of the necessity

of addressing these new information needs, leading to

accounts which are adapted to the current social and

economic reality.

2. Need to Present Informationon Intellectual Capital in Institutionsof Higher Education

Intellectual capital, when referred to a university, is a term

used to cover all the institution's non-tangible or non-

physical assets, including processes, capacity for innova-

tion, patents, the tacit knowledge of its members and their

capacities, talents and skills, the recognition of society, its

network of collaborators and contacts, etc. The intellectual

capital is the collection of intangibles which \allows an

organisation to transfer a collection of material, ¯nancial

and human resources into a system capable of creating

value for the stakeholders" (European Commission,

2006, p. 4).

The components of a university's intellectual capital

have been categorised in diverse ways although, un-

doubtedly, the tripartite classi¯cation is the most widely

accepted in specialised literature (Bezhani, 2010; Bodn�ar

et al., 2010; Casanueva and Gallego, 2010; Secundo et al.,

2010; S�anchez et al., 2009; Elena, 2007; Ramírez et al.,

2007; Leitner, 2004; Cañibano and S�anchez, 2008; Cañi-bano et al., 2002). Intellectual capital is represented as

being formed by the following three basic and closely in-

terrelated components:

. Human Capital: it is the sum of the explicit and tacit

knowledge of the university sta® (teachers, researchers,

managers, administration and service sta®), acquired

through formal and non-formal education and refresher

processes included in their activities.

. Structural Capital: it is the explicit knowledge relating

to the internal processes of dissemination, communica-

tion and management of the scienti¯c and technical

knowledge at the university. Structural capital may be

divided into:

� Organisational Capital: this refers to the opera-

tional environment derived from the interaction

between research, management and organisation

processes, organisational routines, corporate cul-

ture and values, internal procedures, quality and

scope of the information system, etc.

� Technological Capital: this refers to the techno-

logical resources available at the university, such

as bibliographical and documentary resources,

archives, technical developments, patents, licen-

ces, software, databases, etc.

. Relational Capital: this refers to the extensive collection

of economic, political and institutional relations devel-

oped and upheld between the university and its non-

academic partners: enterprises, non-pro¯t organisations,

local government and society in general. It also includes

the perception that others have of the university: its

image, appeal, reliability, etc.

The need for universities to have a greater involvement

with their wider community and the general concern to

ensure the informational transparency of these institu-

tions so as to satisfy the information needs of their users

makes it advisable to present information on intellectual

capital. Below are some of the reasons why it is a major

necessity for these institutions to start including infor-

mation on intellectual capital in their current accounting

systems:

. Knowledge is the principal output and input of higher

education institutions. Universities produce knowledge,

either through scienti¯c and technical research (the

results of investigation, publications etc.) or through

teaching (students trained and productive relationships

with their stakeholders). Their most valuable resources

also include their teachers, researchers, administration

and service sta®, university governors and students,

with all their organisational relationships and routines

(Warden, 2003; Leitner, 2004). It is true to say then

that universities' input and output are largely intangi-

ble (Cañibano and S�anchez, 2008, p. 9).

. The existence of continual demands for greater infor-

mation and transparency about the use of public money

(Warden, 2003), mainly due to the fact that most of the

funding for public universities is handed over by the

government (S�anchez and Elena, 2006).

. The greater independence of universities regarding their

organisation, management and budget distribution

requires greater social responsibility which will lead

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universities to prepare accounting information to report

to society as well as to facilitate and satisfy the infor-

mation needs of participants in the institution itself

(Gonz�alez, 2003, p. 401).

. The implementation of the European Space for Higher

Education promotes the mobility of both students and

teachers within the territory of Europe, while at the

same time encouraging both collaboration and compe-

tition between universities. This environment of greater

competition and necessary collaboration means that

these institutions are now committed to accessing citi-

zens and transmitting relevant information on their

activities. All this could well play an important role in

the decision-making processes of the users of the

accounting information, for example in the case of

potential students choosing where to study.

. Lastly, it is important to point out that universities are

now facing growing competition due to lower funding,

which puts them under greater pressure to communi-

cate their results.

It is clear, then, that there is an increased necessity for

universities to render accounts. University organisations

must be ready to supply objective and relevant informa-

tion which fully satis¯es users' information needs. Uni-

versities will have to pay greater attention to their

di®erent stakeholders and their respective information

interests when designing their communication strategy. It

will be necessary to include relevant information on their

intangible assets, such as the quality of the institutions,

their social and environmental responsibility, the capaci-

ties, competences and skills of their sta®, etc.

The empirical study conducted for thiswork is a¯rst step

towards highlighting the importance given by di®erent

Spanish public universities to the need to carry out a pro-

active publication of information on intellectual capital.

3. Review of the Literature

Current accounting regulations restrict the recognition of

intangibles. Only acquired intangible assets may be

re°ected in an organisation's balance sheet (Cañibanoet al., 2008). For this reason, there are numerous interna-

tional regulatory bodies, agencies and academic institu-

tions that aware of the di±culty of incorporating

intellectual capital into the balance, tend to recommend

the development and presentation of the so called Intel-

lectual capital reports. Intellectual capital reports contain

a set of indicators that contribute to improving the

quality of accounting information in organisations. In this

line, at a national level in Spain, the Commission of

Accounting Experts of Ministry of Economy (ICAC, 2002)

recommends the voluntary drafting and publication of a

report on intellectual capital by following the guidelines of

the Meritum Project (Cañibano et al., 2002), consisting of

three parts: a vision of the company, a summary of intan-

gible resources and activities and a system of indicators.

The obligation to present the intellectual capital report

in the higher education system would be a crucial step

towards the new university management, achieving dou-

ble objectives: to identify and measure intangibles for

management purposes and to provide useful information

to stakeholders.

One of the most interesting experiences in the presen-

tation of information on intellectual capital is that of Aus-

tria's public universities, which are obliged to present

intellectual capital reports (known as Wissensbilanz). The

Austrian University Law of 2002 (Federal Ministry of Ed-

ucation, Science and Culture of Austria, 2002), in Article

13, established the obligation and the general framework for

developing this intellectual capital report. According to

UG2002 (Section 13, Subsection 6), the intellectual capital

report will include, at least, the following elements: (a) the

university's activities, its social and voluntary objectives

and its strategies; (b) the intellectual capital, divided into

human, structural and relational capital; (c) the processes

presented in the performance contract, including outputs

and impacts. The ¯rst intellectual capital report should

have been published in 2005. However, the ministerial order

(Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Culture of

Austria, 2006) relating to the detailed structure of the

university intellectual capital report. The way to present

the information and the indicators to be compulsorily in-

cluded was not published until February 15, 2006. So,

Austrian universities have only really been obliged to pub-

lish an intellectual capital report every April 30 since 2007.

Another interesting study is the case of the Poznan

University of Economics, in Poland, where Fazlagic (2005)

presents an intellectual capital report based on the

methodology proposed by the Danish Ministry of Science,

Technology and Innovation (2000), in which intellectual

capital is presented in the form of resources, activities and

results; and the proposal of the Korean non-pro¯t research

organisation ETRI (Electronics and Telecommunications

Research Institute), which in early 2001 developed an

e®ective management tool and established a knowledge

management system. And, since 2004 ETRI publishes

intellectual capital reports annually (ETRI, 2005).

On the other hand, the Observatory of European

Universities (OEU) proposed the presentation of an in-

tellectual capital report called the ICU Report (S�anchez

et al., 2006), speci¯cally designed for universities and

research centres, with the aim of improving transparency

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and aiding the homogenous dissemination of the indica-

tors of intellectual capital. The proposed ICU report

consists of three fundamental sections which describe the

logical movement from internal strategy (design of the

vision and objectives of an institution) and management

towards a system of indicators (OEU, 2006, p. 211): (a)

vision of the institution; (b) intangible resources and

activities; (c) system of metrics.

Despite these experiences, at a national level neither

accounting bodies nor government agencies have estab-

lished regulations, standards or norms related to prepar-

ing intellectual capital reports which involve the existence

of a strict, agreed, and theoretical framework standardis-

ing the data to be presented.

Lastly, we analyse some of the major studies on the

information provided in the annual accounts published by

institutions of higher education. Most of this research has

been conducted in universities in the USA, United King-

dom, Australia and Canada although there also exist

isolated examples in New Zealand, Greece and Belgium. In

Spain, hardly any studies of public universities' account-

ing practices have been published, the most notable of

which are those by Martín (2006) about the content of the

annual accounts published by Spanish public universities

and the regional analysis conducted by Sierra and Guerra

(2003) for the university system of Andalusia.

Table 1 shows a brief review of some of the studies on

universities' information publishing practices.

Table 1. The principal studies on information published by universities.

Authors Sample Principal results

Banks et al. (1997) Universities in England, Walesand Northern Ireland.

The study demonstrates that in order to achieve greatertransparency and comparability between institutions in therendering of accounts, it is necessary to reach a consensus on whatcontent needs to be included as non-¯nancial indicators.

Nelson et al. (1997) Australian universities.Period 1993�1995.

The results show that the information provided barely ful¯ls thebasic objectives of the accounting information. The authorshighlight the lack of key performance indicators which can be usedto make valued judgements on whether the institutionssuccessfully reach their objectives.

Gordon et al. (1997) Private US universities. The authors show that regardless of the nature of the institution, theannual accounts place greatest emphasis on ¯nancial informationwhile barely providing information on fundamental activities,teaching, research and other complementary services.

Montondon andFisher (1999)

Public US universities. The results again demonstrate that the programmes of internal auditfocus on the development of ¯nancial audits to guarantee ¯nancialcontrol and the legality of the institutions. They rarely performoperative audits oriented towards the assessment on the e±ciencyof the institutions' activities.

Coy et al. (2001) US universities. The authors criticise the paradigm of the use of accountinginformation in institutions of higher education and recommendextending the limits of universities' annual accounts. They defenda new paradigm for the annual accounts which provides morewide-ranging information on teaching and research, by includinge®ort indicators and achievements, with more attention being paidto the social responsibility of institutions of higher education.

Banks et al. (2004) Canadian universities in theperiod from 1994 to 2000.

The authors highlight the progress made regarding the content andquality of the information provided by Canadian universities.

Martín (2006) Spanish public universities. The study concludes that the annual accounts submitted by Spanishpublic universities are mainly oriented towards establishing theorganisations' budgetary control rather than satisfying otherinformation objectives and allowing more wide-ranging accountsto be rendered.

Machado (2007) Spanish and Portugueseuniversity.

The study demonstrates that stakeholders do not only demand¯nancial information relating to universities. They are moreinterested in being informed about the quality and evolution ofactions related to the institutions' speci¯c activities and not onlytheir ¯nancial results.

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4. Empirical Study

The generalised concern regarding the need to guarantee

the information transparency of Spanish universities led

us to consider the need to include information on intel-

lectual capital in universities' annual reports. To this end,

the decision was taken to seek out the opinion of the

users of university accounting information regarding the

importance they give to completing the information from

university ¯nancial statements with information relating

to the these institutions' intellectual capital. A question-

naire was designed and sent to every member of the Social

Councils of Spanish public universities. It was thought

that these participants would provide a good example of

the attitude of university information users since they

represent the di®erent social groups connected with

universities.

Once the di®erent opinions were recorded and ana-

lysed, we were in the position of con¯rming the need for

universities to o®er information on intellectual capital in

their accounting information model.

4.1. Research objectives

The two fundamental objectives of this empirical study

are:

. Objective I: To learn the general level of satisfaction of

university accounting information users with the infor-

mation contained in Spanish public universities' annual

accounts.

. Objective II: To determine the extent to which di®erent

users are demanding information relating to the intel-

lectual capital of Spanish public universities in order to

make the right decisions, identifying which intangible

resources are the most relevant for publication.

4.2. Methodology and data collection

In order to achieve the previously mentioned objectives, in

mid-May 2010 an online questionnaire requesting the

opinion of the members of the Social Councils was sent to

all Spanish public universities. The methodology of the

study is outlined in the data sheet attached in Table 2.

4.2.1. De¯ning the population and selectingthe sample

After reviewing the literature dedicated to the analysis of

stakeholders in universities (O'dwyer et al., 2005; Jong-

bloed et al., 2008; Okunoye et al., 2008; Gaete, 2009;

Larr�an et al., 2010), a certain consensus was detected once

the following users of the accounting information of the

higher education institutions were identi¯ed: the public

administration, bodies of university government, stu-

dents, teaching and research sta®, administration and

service sta®, unions, private and public organisations with

plans to employ university graduates or to apply the re-

search generated at the institution, the media, founda-

tions or any other party interested in university activity.

Two important factors were used to select the popu-

lation to be studied: (1) members of the Social Councils of

Spanish public universities were considered to provide a

good sample of the feelings of university information users,

as they represent the various social groups with links to

the universities (2) these members are familiar with the

Table 1. (Continued )

Authors Sample Principal results

Martín andMoneva (2009)

9 Spanish universities.Period: 2006.

The content of the academic and economic reports of the 9universities is limited to economic issues, providing information onthe management of resources which helps to guarantee theinstitutions' ¯nancial control. This information is complementedby other non-¯nancial indicators relating to teaching and researchactivities, while barely touching on environmental indicators.

Source: Compiled by the authors.

Table 2. Technical details.

Analysis group Users of accounting informationfrom Spanish public universities.

Universe Members of the Social Councilsof Spanish publicuniversities (1.094).

Size of sample 247.Information collection

techniqueOn line survey.

Period of ¯eld work May�July 2010.Average time per survey 7 minutes 45 seconds.Software SPSSr v. 17.

Source: Compiled by authors.



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accounting information published by the universities since

they are responsible for approving the universities' annual

accounts.

Following the analysis of the composition of the Social

Councils, the members were divided into these seven

groups: (1) university governors (vice-chancellor, general

secretary, council secretary and manager), (2) teaching

and research sta®, (3) students, (4) administration and

service sta®, (5) representatives of business organisations,

(6) representatives of union organisations, (7) representa-

tives of the public administrations.

The population to be studied was therefore, composed

of the 1.904 members of the Social Councils of Spanish

public universities. Replies were received from 247 mem-

bers, 22.57% of the total. The size of the sample was

considered su±cient, since in a binomial population the

estimation error would be 5.37% for a reliability level of

95%.

4.2.2. Information collection and treatment

The information was collected via an online survey. An

email was sent to the members of the Spanish universities'

Social Councils, requesting their members to take part in

our research.

The questionnaire consists of closed dichotomous

questions combined with Likert scales, designed to learn

the opinion of accounting information users on the im-

portance of Spanish public universities publishing infor-

mation on their intellectual capital (see Appendix A).

4.2.3. Treatment of data

A descriptive analysis of the replies was conducted

according to the characteristics of each of the questions. A

contrast analysis was performed to see if there existed any

di®erences in the replies depending on the type of user of

the accounting information. An ANOVA analysis was

used in the questions which were evaluated with a Likert

scale while for those questions which were categorical

variables which could not be assimilated in a Likert scale,

the contrasts were performed using a �2 statistic.

With regard to the comparisons of opinion between

users, contrasts were performed both for the seven groups

of users into which the population was divided (university

governors, teaching and research sta®, administration and

service sta®, students, union organisations, business

organisations and public administrations) and the three

groups of users (university governors, employees and

external users). In the latter case, we were interested in

¯nding out if there existed di®erences in the opinions of

those we considered as external users (students, business

organisations and public administrations) and those clas-

si¯ed as internal users1 (university governors) who are

responsible for submitting the annual accounts and man-

aging the university institution. A further group was

added, that of the employees, (teaching and research sta®

and administration and service sta®, since, although as

faculty members they constitute part of the organs of

university government, their opinions were considered to

be of interest on an individual basis.

4.3. Analysis of the results of the empiricalstudy

We now follow with some considerations on the principal

results obtained from the empirical study for each of the

objectives previously established.

4.3.1. Objective 1: Level of satisfaction with thecurrent university accounting informationmodel

The ¯rst item on the questionnaire is designed to discover

the opinion of the users of university accounting infor-

mation about the suitability of the annual accounts sub-

mitted by universities with regard to providing relevant

information on the activities they perform. A high per-

centage, 66.3%, of those surveyed feel that annual uni-

versity accounts do not provide relevant information on

the university's activities.

This result would seem to question, at least partially,

the validity of the current model of university accounting

information. However, in order to analyse whether di®er-

ences exist in the opinions of those surveyed depending on

the group of users a �2 statistic will be used.

In this case, at a 5% (� ¼ 0:05) signi¯cance level the

hypotheses are;

& H0: The variables (user type and relevance of

annual accounts) are independent (there is no

association). This means no di®erences exist in the

opinions of the di®erent user types regarding the

relevance of the information contained in the an-

nual accounts.

& H1: The variables are dependent (association).

There are no di®erences in the opinions of each

user group.

1Following O'Dwyer et al. (2005:762), we consider as potential users of institutional accounting information all the individuals or organisations whichmight have a direct or indirect interest in the working and activities of the institution, both those who contribute to these activities and those who are in

any way in°uenced by them.

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When the probability associated to statistic �2 is high

(asymptotic signi¯cance higher than 0.05), the null

hypothesis will be accepted, which means that no di®er-

ences exist between the di®erent users of the accounting

information. If the probability is lower than 5%, the

null hypothesis will be rejected, which means that di®er-

ences between the di®erent types of users are considered to

exist.

The following results were obtained for the �2 statistic:

Chi-square tests.

Value gl Asymptoticsigni¯cance(bilateral)

Pearson's Chi-square test 34.292(a) 12 0.001Reason of verisimilitude 31.291 12 0.002Number of valid cases 247

Note: (a) 9 boxes (42.9%) have an expected frequency lowerthan 5.The minimum expected frequency is 1.07.

So if we di®erentiate between user groups, the results

of the �2 statistic allow us to state that statistically sig-

ni¯cant di®erences exist. In fact, the representatives of

business organisations (79.3%), students (75%), adminis-

tration and services sta® (73.3%), teaching and research

sta® (68.2%) and public administrations (66.4%) are the

groups which are most critical with the relevance of the

information in the universities' annual accounts. However,

the percentage of members of the group of university

governors that feel the annual accounts do not provide

relevant information regarding university activities is

considerably lower at 41%.

It is especially interesting to note that, 51.3% of the

representatives of university government, do believe

that the information provided in the annual accounts is

relevant. This result leads us to believe that a gap exists

between the opinions of the members of university

government, who are responsible for drafting the annual

accounts, and the external users. So, in order to improve

the information contained in the current university

¯nancial statements, it is necessary to make accounting

regulators aware of the need to extend the information

provided in the current accounting statements.

The next question in this block is intended to analyse

the type of information provided in the annual accounts

published by Spanish public universities. Those surveyed

were asked to value on a 5-point Likert scale whether the

current university accounting reports delivered informa-

tion regarding a series of factors (18 items).

Table 3 shows the principal descriptive statistics

obtained.

The results obtained show that in the opinion of those

surveyed the annual accounts submitted by universities

are fundamentally oriented towards budgetary issues, the

economic/¯nancial position of the university and legal

compliance. The high mean value reached by this type of

information (4.19, 3.87 and 3.85 respectively) together

with the reduced value of their typical deviations, shows

that there is a high degree of consensus among all those

surveyed regarding how universities' annual accounts

place great importance on complying with legal obliga-

tions, especially in budgetary matters. However, the

replies obtained lead us to conclude that universities'

annual accounts provide very little information on rela-

tionships with customers (students and private and public

organisations) and employees, or on social and corporate

responsibility, the socio-economic impact of the universi-

ties' activities, the level and quality of the services pro-

vided, the quality of teaching and research or on the

e±ciency of resource management.

We will also analyse whether these opinions on the

information published in universities' annual accounts

depend on the type of users represented by the members of

the social councils. An ANOVA analysis (means compar-

ison) will be conducted, which will allow us to check if

di®erences exist in the opinions of the di®erent groups of

users and if these di®erences are statistically signi¯cant.2

In order to apply the ANOVA analysis, the 18 items

included in the survey have been taken as dependent

variables. The groups to which the users identi¯ed in our

study belong (1. university governors, 2. employees, 3.

external users) have been taken as independent variables.

The F statistic, the coe±cient between the intergroup

and the intra-group, with a signi¯cance level of 0.05, allow

us to con¯rm if the variables included in the analysis

present signi¯cant di®erences between the groups (see

Table 4).

The results of the ANOVA analysis presented in the

table demonstrate that statistically signi¯cant di®erences

(sig. <0.05) exist in most of the informational aspects

analysed (speci¯cally in 12 of them).

In order to compare between which groups of users

there exist greater di®erences of opinion regarding the

importance of the universities' annual accounts providing

information on the various di®ering aspects, the DMS

procedure will be used in the case of variables with

2We consider the signi¯cance level of the di®erence of means to be 0.05.



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Table 4. Analysis of variance (ANOVA).

Group N Mean Typical deviation F Sig.

Performance 1. Univ. Gover. 39 3.33 1.06 14.495 0.0002. Employees 37 2.43 1.093. External user 171 2.35 1.01

Legality 1. Univ. Gover. 39 3.56 1.21 5.568 0.0042. Employees 37 3.57 1.093. External user 171 3.98 0.75

Management 1. Univ. Gover. 39 2.59 1.07 8.262 0.0002. Employees 37 2.19 1.153. External user 171 1.89 0.93

Position 1. Univ. Gover. 39 3.87 0.92 1.486 0.2282. Employees 37 4.14 1.113. External user 171 3.82 1.01

Implementation 1. Univ. Gover. 39 3.41 0.94 12.759 0.0002. Employees 37 3.14 1.063. External user 171 2.53 1.13

Budgetary 1. Univ. Gover. 39 4.28 0.79 0.345 0.7092. Employees 37 4.22 1.083. External user 171 4.16 0.84

Achievements 1. Univ. Gover. 39 2.95 1.05 11.759 0.0002. Employees 37 2.54 0.933. External user 171 2.14 0.98

Compliance 1. Univ. Gover. 39 2.85 1.01 2.487 0.0852. Employees 37 2.38 0.953. External user 171 2.47 1.06

Table 3. Descriptive statistics (*).

Measurement Typical deviation Percentiles

25 75

Budgetary information. 4.19 0.87 4 5University's economic/¯nancial position. 3.87 1.01 3 5Legal compliance. 3.85 0.91 3 4Implementation level of established programmes. 2.76 1.15 2 4Organisational structure. 2.67 1.11 2 3University's performance. 2.52 1.09 2 3E®ectiveness of institution's objectives. 2.51 1.04 2 3Technological aspects. 2.34 0.94 2 3Achievements made in providing public services. 2.33 1.02 2 3Execution of teaching and research activities and complementary services. 2.32 1.04 1 3Relationship with university sta®. 2.08 0.85 1 3Basic characteristics of courses (cost of quali¯cations, employment

opportunities, graduates satisfaction, etc.).2.07 0.98 1 3

E±ciency of resource management. 2.05 1.02 1 3Quality of teaching, research and services. 2.01 1.07 1 3Level and quality of university services. 2.00 0.96 1 3Socio-economic impact of university's activities. 2.00 0.92 1 2Social and corporate responsibility. 1.95 0.96 1 2Customer relations (students and public and private organisations). 1.95 0.86 1 3

Source: Compiled by authors.Note: (*) 5-point scale: (1: little information, 5: a lot of information).

Y. R. C�orcoles


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homogeneous variances and Tamhane's T2 procedure will

be used for those without homogeneity of variances. In all

cases, with the exception of the variables of legal compli-

ance, social and corporate responsibility, relations with

university sta® and teaching quality, the null hypothesis

of homogeneity is accepted. In the case of these four

variables, Tamhane's T2 test will be used to compare

between which user groups there exist greater di®erences

of opinion, while for the other variables the DMS test will

be used.

Table 5 shows the multiple comparison test.

The results obtained in the multiple comparison test

show that for all the information items in which the

user groups have di®ering opinions (information on the

university's performance, e±ciency of resource manage-

ment, implementation level of established programmes,

achievements made in providing public services, level

and quality of university services, customer relations,

execution of teaching and research activities and comple-

mentary services, quality of teaching, research and ser-

vices, organisational structure and technological aspects),

it is the external users who are more critical about the

provision for this information than the members of the

university government. In our opinion, the di®erences

found between the groups of external and internal users

(the members of university government) are a sign of the

gap which exists between the information external users

consider relevant so as to improve their decision making

and the priority given by the teams of university gover-

nors to balancing the organisation's ¯nancial and bud-

getary situation. So it is highly important to make those

responsible for drafting universities' annual accounts

aware of the need to improve the current model of ac-

counting information since external users clearly feel that

their information needs are not satis¯ed by the current

accounting statements.

Table 4. (Continued )

Group N Mean Typical deviation F Sig.

Quality 1. Univ. Gover. 39 2.56 1.07 10.296 0.0002. Employees 37 2.14 1.033. External user 171 1.84 0.87

Social responsibility 1. Univ. Gover. 39 2.26 1.07 4.183 0.0162. Employees 37 2.16 1.173. External user 171 1.84 0.87

Impact 1. Univ. Gover. 39 2.26 1.02 1.899 0.1522. Employees 37 1.97 1.073. External user 171 1.94 0.85

Courses 1. Univ. Gover. 39 2.21 1.06 0.886 0.4142. Employees 37 2.19 1.103. External user 171 2.02 0.94

Personal relations 1. Univ. Gover. 39 2.41 1.09 5.320 0.0052. Employees 37 2.24 0.603. External user 171 1.96 0.82

Customer relations 1. Univ. Gover. 39 2.21 1.00 5.109 0.0072. Employees 37 2.22 0.893. External user 171 1.84 0.80

Activities 1. Univ. Gover. 39 2.97 1.22 15.106 0.0002. Employees 37 2.65 0.923. External user 171 2.09 0.94

Teaching quality 1. Univ. Gover. 39 2.69 1.34 10.537 0.0002. Employees 37 2.03 1.173. External user 171 1.85 0.91

Structure 1. Univ. Gover. 39 3.33 1.15 10.297 0.0002. Employees 37 2.81 1.153. External user 171 2.49 1.04

Technology 1. Univ. Gover. 39 2.97 0.99 11.942 0.0002. Employees 37 2.11 0.973. External user 171 2.25 0.86



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It can be concluded that, much as in the private sphere

and in other public organisations, it is the external users

who are especially critical with the information provided

in universities' annual accounts. These users feel the

accounts o®er very little relevant information on aspects

such as the e±ciency of resource management, customer

relations (students and public and private organisations),

the level and quality of university services or the quality of

teaching, research and services.

Insisting once again on the usefulness of universities'

annual accounts, those surveyed were asked to value on a

5-point Likert scale the importance they give to the cur-

rent ¯nancial statements submitted by Spanish public

universities regarding the satisfaction of the di®erent

users' information needs. In global terms, the following

results were obtained (see Table 6).

As can be seen in the table above, those surveyed

highlight the fact that the current annual accounts,

published by universities, barely cover the information

needs of the di®erent users. They are especially critical

about the fact that the annual accounts o®er very little

relevant information for individual citizens, business

organisations, students (current, potential and ex-stu-

dents) and for public and private organisations collabo-

rating on scienti¯c and technological projects to use in

their respective decision making processes. As well as,

analysing the general opinion of those surveyed regarding

the satisfaction of the information needs of all the users of

universities' accounting information, in this block it is

interesting to learn the opinion of each user group (public

administrations, employees, students, business organisa-

tion and university government) regarding the suitability

of the information published in Spanish public universi-

ties' annual accounts for satisfying their information

needs.

It was found that, 51.4% of the representatives of

public administrations, 59.5% of employees (teaching and

research sta® and administration and service sta®), 68.4%

of students and 77.7% of business organisations feel that

the current ¯nancial statements submitted by universities

have little or no relevance to satisfying their needs, while

this is only 24.3% in the case of university governors.

The ¯gure shows the mean value given by these dif-

ferent user groups to the importance of the current uni-

versity ¯nancial statements in satisfying their information

needs (see Fig. 1).

The results recorded in the ¯gure once again show that

the representatives of business organisations are the most

critical about the usefulness of the current annual

accounts for satisfying their information needs, followed,

at some distance, by students and the representatives of

public administrations. In contrast, the representatives of

university government do ¯nd the information provided in

the annual accounts to be useful.

Table 5. Multiple comparison test.

Dependent variable (I) 7 groups (J) 7 groups Di®erenceof means (I-J)

Signi¯cance

Performance Employees Univ. Gover. �0.901* 0.000External user Univ. Gover. �0.982* 0.000

Management External user Univ. Gover. �0.695* 0.000

Execution External user Univ. Gover. �0.878* 0.000External user Employees �0.603* 0.003

Achievement External user Univ. Gover. �0.808* 0.000External user Employees �0.400* 0.026

Quality Employees Univ. Gover. �0.429* 0.045External user Univ. Gover. �0.728* 0.000

Customer relations External user Univ. Gover. �0.369* 0.015External user Employees �0.380* 0.014

Activities External user Univ. Gover. �0.881* 0.000External user Employees �0.555* 0.002

Teaching quality External user Univ. Gover. �0.839* 0.002

Structure Employees Univ. Gover. �0.523* 0.035External user Univ. Gover. �0.848* 0.000

Technology Employees Univ. Gover. �0.866* 0.000External user Univ. Gover. �0.729* 0.000

Note: *The di®erence of means is signi¯cant at 0.05 level.

Y. R. C�orcoles


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4.3.2. Objective 2: Importance given to thepresentation of information on intellectualcapital in universities' accounting reports

The second block of the questionnaire includes a set of

questions related to the importance users give to the in-

clusion of information on intellectual capital in universi-

ties' accounting statements. A list of intangible assets

relating to human capital, structural capital, structural

and relational capital is included so as to ascertain to what

degree it is relevant to publish this information.

As high as 89.1% of those surveyed in our study showed

great interest in Spanish public universities presenting

information on intellectual capital. They felt that pub-

lishing this information would make the content of the

current university ¯nancial statements more relevant.

Only 4.9% of those surveyed consider that publishing in-

formation on intellectual capital increases the ambiguity

and the lack of relevance of the information included in

the current accounting statements.

By user groups it was found that practically all the

users — public administrations (89.4%), students (100%),

business organisations (86.2%), teaching and research

sta® (95.5%) and university governors (97.4%), adminis-

tration and services sta® (66.7%) and union organisations

(76.5%) — consider that the presentation of information

on universities' intellectual capital increases the relevance

of the information contained in the current ¯nancial

statements.

Lastly, it was our intention to learn the opinion of the

users of university accounting information about which

intangible assets it is most important to publish infor-

mation. This would help to justify the need to include this

information in the university accounting model.

In order to ful¯l this objective those surveyed were

given a list of intangible elements corresponding to the

three blocks of intellectual capital and were then asked to

value on a 5-point Likert scale the importance they gave

to universities publishing information on these items. On

the scale, 1 corresponds to \not at all important" and 5

\very important."

In order to identify which intangible assets the users of

university accounting information consider essential to

publish information, we set as a requirement that the assets

had to reach a mean value of over above 4, 5 and a median

equal or higher than 4 points in combination with a mini-

mum25 of 4 points and aminimum75 percentile of 5 points.

In short, the intention is that most of the distribution of

values is concentrated in high scores close to 5 points.

Firstly it must be observed that, in general, a high

mean value was awarded to publishing information on

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4

Public Administration

Administration and service staff

Teaching and research staff

Students

Business organisations

University governors

2.29

2.8

2.5

2.25

1.45

4

Source: Compiled by authors.

Fig. 1. Value given by users to the relevance of the currentuniversity ¯nancial statements.

Table 6. Descriptive statistics (*).

Mean Typicaldeviation

Percentiles

25 75

University government(Chancellor's o±ce, Boardof Governors, Faculty,Social Council, ConsultativeBoard)

3.32 1.12 3 4

External control organs 3.03 1.09 2 4Investors and creditors (banks,

credit institutions, investors,insurance companies, etc.)

2.98 1.00 2 4

University CoordinationCouncil

2.90 1.05 2 4

Assessment/accreditationagencies

2.89 1.04 2 4

Public organisations (centraland regional governments)

2.68 1.20 2 4

Donators and resourceproviders

2.68 0.92 2 3

The media 2.45 0.95 2 3Public or private organisations

collaborating on scienti¯cand technological projects

2.34 1.10 1 3

Political parties 2.23 1.06 1 3Employees 2.13 1.18 1 3Students (current, potential

and ex-students)2.05 1.08 1 3

Public and privateorganisation which recruitgraduates

2.00 1.01 1 2

Business organisations 1.93 1.07 1 2The general public 1.90 0.93 1 2Individual citizens (voters, tax

payers, customers)1.87 0.98 1 2

Source: Compiled by authors.Note: (*) 5-point scale: (1: little information, 5: a lot of infor-mation).



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intangible items relating to human, structural and rela-

tional capital. Speci¯cally, the analysis of the data

obtained from the various statistics (mean, median, mode,

range typical deviation, 25 and 75 percentiles) led to

classifying the following intangible elements as essential to

publish (see Fig. 2).

According to the results obtained from the analysis of

the di®erent statistics it may be concluded that the users

of the accounting information of Spanish public universi-

ties feel that it is relevant to publish all the assets included

in the relational block of our questionnaire, except for

information concerning relations with the media.

5. Conclusions

In the current context of the knowledge society institu-

tions of higher education have to deal with numerous

changes (the Bologna process, increase in global compe-

tition, the construction of European research and higher

education areas) which directly a®ect the conceptuali-

sation of the function of these institutions and their

accounting information model.

From the results of the empirical study we conducted,

we found that simply publishing the current universality

¯nancial statements is not enough to properly satisfy the

information demands of users. We consider that this in-

formation needs to be completed with the inclusion of

information related to the intellectual capital of institu-

tions of higher education. Publishing information related

to intellectual capital will be an exercise in transparency

for the public universities and will facilitate users' access

to information which is relevant to their decision making

processes.

The results obtained in our study show that there

exists much criticism of the current accounting model of

Spanish public universities. In the opinion of those sur-

veyed, the annual accounts presented by Spanish public

universities are largely oriented towards information

concerning the universities' budget, economic and ¯nan-

cial situation and legal compliance. These accounts o®er

extremely little information regarding aspects such as the

level and quality of the services provided, relations with

customers (students and public and private organisa-

tions) and employees, information about social and cor-

porate responsibility, teaching and research quality or

about the e±ciency of resource management. We can

conclude, then, that much the same as in the business

world or in other public organisations, the accounting

information provided by universities does no more than

satisfy the minimum legally required needs of the users of

this accounting information. If we look at the di®erent

groups, we see that it is the external users who are most

critical of the current information model of Spanish

public universities. We believe that the di®erences of

opinion between the group of external users and that of

the members of university government is a clear sign of

the gap which exists between the information which ex-

ternal users consider relevant for their decision making

and the priority given by the teams of university gover-

nors to balancing the organisation's ¯nancial and bud-

getary situation. It is, therefore, considered of prime

importance to make the accounting regulators aware of

the need to improve the current model of accounting

information since external users clearly feel that their

information needs are not satis¯ed by the current

accounting statements.

Academic and professional

qualifications

Mobility

Scientific productivity

Teaching quality

HUMAN CAPITAL

Effort in innovation and improvement

Intellectual property

Management quality

STRUCTURAL CAPITAL RELATIONAL CAPITAL

Graduate employability

Relations with the business world

Application and dissemination of research

Student satisfaction

University’s image

Collaboration with other universities

Source: Own information.

Fig. 2. Essential intangible elements.

Y. R. C�orcoles


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Indeed, a high percentage of those surveyed —

89.1% — feel that in order to increase the relevance of

universities' accounting statements, it is essential to pro-

vide information on intellectual capital. This statement is

further supported and reinforced by data which demon-

strate the extreme importance users of universities' ac-

counting information give to the publication of the

di®erent intangible assets in the human, structural and

relational blocks.

All these results lead us to recommend that universities

include in their accounting statements the information on

intellectual capital in order to make the current model of

university accounting information more relevant.



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Appendix A — Questionnaire

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The Inadequate Information Model of Spanish Universities: The Relevance of Intellectual Capital...

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