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Strategic management accounting in universities: the Italian experience

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Abstract

This paper presents an investigation of management accounting in four major Italian universities, which have been struggling to build their strategy in a context of significant change. Following many OECD countries the Italian government has been changing its higher education system by giving more autonomy to universities. These changes pose a number of challenges for management and accounting systems in Italian Universities. Drawing on self-referential theory and its applications to accounting research the paper analyses the construction of Strategic Management Accounting (SMA) in four Italian universities, which are immersed in a similar context of change. The focus is specifically on two aspects of decisions: (1) resource allocation and (2) new academic programme.

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Notes

  1. The Chamber of Commerce is a local institution representing industries.

  2. National analysis of occupational profiles of graduates. Website: www.almalaurea.it.

  3. Universities annually must transmit to the Ministry of Education (Miur) and to the National Evaluation Committee (CNVSU) a set of data, mainly concerning information about characteristics of teaching activities (number of students, number of teachers, number of administrative staff, etc.). For more details, see the website www.cnvsu.it, and in particular the document no. 04/04 (CNVSU, 2004).

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to MIP—Business School of Politecnico di Milano for the financial support of this study that is included in a wider research project which aim is to evaluate efficiency and effectiveness of universities activities.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, p.za Leonardo da Vinci, 32, 20133 , Milano, Italy

    Tommaso Agasisti, Michela Arnaboldi & Giovanni Azzone

Authors
  1. Tommaso Agasisti
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  2. Michela Arnaboldi
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  3. Giovanni Azzone
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tommaso Agasisti.

Additional information

A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the 28th European Accounting Association Annual Conference, in Gothenburg (18–20th May 2005). We’re grateful to discussants for their useful suggestions.

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Agasisti, T., Arnaboldi, M. & Azzone, G. Strategic management accounting in universities: the Italian experience. High Educ 55, 1–15 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-006-9032-6

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