This article summarises the results of a study of the effects of quality audit at an institution over time. The findings from four academic audit reports, prepared for one New Zealand university between 1996 and 2009, yielded a large dataset. Once grouped thematically for analysis, the data were analysed in terms of how well the institution…

The importance of transnational programmes as part of the internationalisation of higher education has grown rapidly in importance in recent years. In this paper, transnational higher education is defined as the delivery of programmes overseas by a parent institution either operating directly or in association with an international partner. Whilst…

This paper reviews and examines approaches to determining the financial viability of academic programmes as a critical component of assessing a programme's overall sustainability. Key to assessing the financial viability of a programme is understanding the teaching activities required to deliver the programme and the cost of those activities. A…

Efficient use of resources, including space, is critical in academic departments. Traditional space auditing simply assesses occupancy levels. We present a novel approach which assesses not just the extent to which space is used, but also how well it is used. We link space use quantitatively to key performance indicators in a research-intensive…

This study draws on the multi-theoretical approach to governance and the views of university chief executive officers (CEOs) to examine the extent to which internal auditing as a control mechanism is adopted in Australian public universities under an environment of change management. The findings highlight negative consequences of change and their…

Higher education institutions in the United States are entering a new era in budgeting. Therefore, institutions are actively engaging in dialogues about the budgeting tools that will most effectively assist them in achieving institutional goals and objectives within their strategic plans and being accountable for the use of scarce resources, as…

This paper examines whether three bibliometric indicators--the journal impact factor, citations per paper and the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) initiative's list of "ranked journals"--can predict the quality of individual research articles as assessed by international experts, both overall and within broad disciplinary…

In these days of radical contraction of funding and expansion in student numbers, universities are under pressure to prioritise their resources, as well as to achieve effective costing and pricing to support judgement and decision making for funding and any external work undertaken. This study reviews costing, pricing and income measurement in…