Acta Universitatis Danubius. Œconomica, Vol 12, No 3 (2016)

Abstract

The study aims to explore the needs of a broad group of stakeholders of Malaysian public universities with respect to information items that should be disclosed in the university annual report, and their views on the disclosure importance of the items. This is a preliminary study towards the effort to develop an accountability reporting framework for Malaysian public universities. A questionnaire survey on the universities’ stakeholders representing each stakeholder group which include policy makers, students, parents, employers, the public, university management and employees, suppliers and oversight entities was carried out in order to identify and confirm the stakeholders’ disclosure needs.  It is expected that the needs of the stakeholders in terms of information to be reported are comprehensive which include financial and non-financial information; and there are differences in the views on the disclosure importance of information among the stakeholder groups. The findings of this study provide a clear understanding of the information that should be disclosed in the annual reports of Malaysian public universities for accountability purpose. The findings may potentially assist the public universities to improve the way they discharge their public accountability through annual reporting.