Anil K Narayan

The role of government and accounting in the development of academic research commercialization: The New Zealand experience

Over the past three decades, many nations have accelerated their efforts to develop academic research commercialization to help drive their innovation and productivity goals. Despite failure to achieve the desired results, surprisingly very few studies have examined how research commercialization initiatives are designed at the government level. This study reviews the historical role of the government and the interplay between significant shifts in research direction, funding and accounting that contributed to the development of academic research commercialization in New Zealand. The paper concludes that funding pressures combined with the government’s lack of early recognition and formal endorsement of research commercialization as a vital activity contributed to previous low levels of academic research commercialization. The important lessons to be learnt from the New Zealand case are that academic research commercialization requires a coherent long-term national strategy that is responsive, promises results and has funding incentives.

An ethical perspective on performance measurement in the public sector

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide an ethical perspective that goes beyond best practice in performance measurement systems in the public sector to help minimise unintended and unethical effects. Design/methodology/approach The paper draws on the ethical concepts of bounded ethicality, ethical blind spots and ethical fading to help illuminate the dark side of performance measurement in public sector organisations. Findings An understanding of the psychological tendencies that create unethical behaviours will assist compliance with ethics and morality and is a way forward towards minimising the unintended consequences of performance measurement in the public sector. Practical implications The findings will assist public sector managers by providing a greater understanding of why so many unethical acts occur and how to overcome ethical failures in the design and use of performance measurement systems. Originality/value The study adds value by contributing to performance measurement literature on the need to recognise the limitations of the human mind and innate psychological processes that make people systematically and unknowingly engage in unethical behaviour. The ethical concepts proposed in this paper go beyond the best practice notions of performance measurement and extend the toolkit of performance measurement techniques in the public sector.

Accounting and accountability challenges

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the strategy, accounting and accountability interface in sustainability implementation in a large public tertiary education organisation in New Zealand. Design/methodology/approach – The study uses ethnography as an “engaging research” to help explain the real-life enactment of accounting and accountability in advancing/deterring sustainability initiatives. The study draws upon neo-institutional theoretical perspectives to help interpret the findings. Findings – Accounting and accountability are powerful conduits for strategy implementation. Successful sustainability strategy implementation requires the embedding of financial accountability within the implementation process. Practical implications – A strong ideological commitment from senior management is required to firmly embed sustainability in the tertiary organisations belief systems, values and norms to get wider organisational acceptance and institutionalisation. Accounting needs to take a position of cent...

The role of accounting in transforming public tertiary institutions in New Zealand

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify and evaluate the role and influence played by the discipline of accounting through its association with the multiple logics of government reforms to transform the public tertiary education sector in New Zealand. Design/methodology/approach The study adopts a case study approach utilising multiple data collection methods. Neo-institutional theory provides an insightful complement to neo-liberalism and enhances the understanding of institutional logics driving government reforms and the transformation of public tertiary institutions. Findings The findings reveal that accounting has become a powerful conduit for the exercise of the neo-liberalism reforms by government and implemented by managerial control over public tertiary education institutions. Research limitations/implications By addressing a gap in the literature, the paper shows how political and economic neo-liberal policies have been implemented in tertiary education with the discipline of accounting being adopted as a prime driver of these reforms. The paper has significant implications for educational management, academics and learners in understanding how and why the inherent nature, objectives and processes of the overall educational experience have undergone a radical reformation. Originality/value New Zealand is one of the first countries to implement these educational reforms and adopted “accounting technologies” to reduce costs and improve performance. But the reality has often been very different. Most of the government’s original objectives have not been fulfilled and the reforms have been costly for the academic profession. This paper provides a valuable source of learning for academics, managers and politicians.

Managing the accountability-autonomy tensions in university research commercialisation

This paper investigates organisational responses to emerging concerns about how accountability-autonomy tensions can be managed within the context of university research commercialisation. The findings suggest that changed expectations of university research practices, which result from the introduction of a commercialisation logic, can be managed via the homogenisation of research goals and strategies. The successful management of accountability-autonomy tensions also depends on utilising the various structures and cultural contexts that can be facilitated by decoupling and bridging strategies. Further, while adopting symbolic systems may enhance legitimacy, failure to implement material practices and provide the appropriate cultural context to manage conflicting relationships may put university commercialisation ambitions at risk.

REMODELLING UNIVERSITY GOVERNANCE IN PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES TO RESPOND TO THE DUAL CHALLENGES OF ACADEMIC RESEARCH AND COMMERCIALIZATION

Using an in-depth case study, this paper examines how the governance of a public university responds to the dual challenges of academic research and commercialization. Our findings indicate that the stakeholder model of institutional governance for academic research strongly underpinned by new public management ideologies conflicted with the research commercialization mission dominated by a profit seeking objective. To be governed responsibly, commercialization requires some degree of corporatization, and the corporate governance model seems to offer many advantages to public universities. The study demonstrated that the best way forward for public universities may be to adopt „dual‟ stakeholder and corporate governance models and utilize complementary and collaborative governance strategies to meet the challenges of academic research development and commercialization.