Digital transparency and public accountability in Spanish universities in online media
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JIC-02-2019-0039 |
| Pages | 701-732 |
| Published date | 28 October 2019 |
| Date | 28 October 2019 |
| Author | Yolanda Ramírez,Ángel Tejada |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management |
Digital transparency and public
accountability in Spanish
universities in online media
Yolanda Ramírez and Ángel Tejada
Department of Accountancy, University of Castilla-La Mancha, Albacete, Spain
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent and quality of online intellectual capital (IC)
disclosure released via websites and social media in relation to university stakeholders’information needs in
Spanish public universities. In addition, this paper examines whether there are differences in the online IC
disclosure according to the type of university.
Design/methodology/approach –The study applies content analysis and a survey. The content analysis
was used to analyse the websites and social media (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram) of all
Spanish public universities in the year 2019, whereas the survey was submitted to all members of the Social
Councils of Spanish public universities.
Findings –The findings indicate that university stakeholders attach great importance to online disclosure of
specific information about IC. However, the findings emphasise that Spanish universities’website and social
media content are still in their infancy. Specifically, this study found that the quality of disclosed information
on IC in public universities’websites is of low level, particularly with regard to the disclosure of relational
capital. The study found that the information provided by Spanish public universities via social media mainly
concerns the structural and relational capital. Likewise, the results of this paper evidence that the larger and
more internationally focused universities reveal more online information on IC.
Practical implications –The results of the research may be beneficial for managers of higher education
institutions as a basis for developing adequate strategies addressing IC disclosure through the websites.
In order to satisfy the information needs of university stakeholders,Spanish universities can be recommended
to focus on reporting higher-quality information on financial relations, students’satisfaction, quality
standard, work-related knowledge/know-how and collaboration between universities and other organisations
such as firms, local government and society as a whole.
Originality/value –This study explores two innovative tools to provide IC disclosure in the higher
education institutions context, namely, websites and social media, whereas previous studies focused on
traditional tools as annual report. Likewise, this study considers the quality of this information.
Keywords Social media, Universities, Disclosure, Spain, Websites, Intellectual capital
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The international higher education environment has had to assume important challenges in
recent years (Shattock, 1998, 1999; Dearlove, 2002; Middlehurst, 2004; Kim, 2008; Trakman,
2008; Melville-Ross, 2010; Parker, 2011; Parry, 2013; Rowlands, 2013). These challenges have
brought greater emphasis on financial imperatives, the need for operational efficiency,
strong internal governance and heightened discourses of “accountability”and
“transparency”(Hordern, 2013; Middlehurst, 2013; Parry, 2013; Rowlands, 2013; Taylor,
2013a, b). Transparency and accountability are the focus of the discussion about the
transformation of public administrations in the society (Kass, 2005; Gandía et al., 2016;
Kim et al., 2005; Justice et al., 2006; Detlor et al., 2013). Transparency is a basic democratic
ideal (Harder and Jordan, 2013) and its role in the public setting involves public
administrations having the obligation to disclose general interest information to the
citizenship, who pay for the resources needed by the administration and thus have the right
to know how these resources are employed (Fairbanks et al., 2007; Guillamón et al., 2011).
Likewise, a high degree of freedom and self-governance within universities has created a
need for accountability, to allow its administration and partners to assess the performance
of institutions. To fulfil their duties of accountability, universities need to improve their
Journal of Intellectual Capital
Vol. 20 No. 5, 2019
pp. 701-732
© Emerald PublishingLimited
1469-1930
DOI 10.1108/JIC-02-2019-0039
Received 25 February 2019
Revised 12 June 2019
27 July 2019
Accepted 10 September 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1469-1930.htm
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reporting mechanisms (Bezhani, 2010; Siboni et al., 2013; Ramírez et al., 2016). According to
Chatterton and Goddard (2003, p. 19), “responding to the new demands requires new kinds
of resources and new forms of management and reporting that enable universities as
institutions to make a dynamic contribution to the development process”.
In particular, since universities are knowledge-intensive organisations in which the
development ofintangible resources is pivotal,these changes require the development of new
measurement and reporting models that include intellectual capital (IC) (Manes et al., 2018).
TheroleofICinuniversitiesiscritical,asuniversitiesarethefocusofintangibleactivities
(Silvestri and Veltri, 2011; Vidrascu, 2016). It is argued that IC (human, structural and relational
capital) (Bezhani, 2010; Secundo et al., 2010) could be used as “a communication device about
how the public sector institution works to create value”( Mouritsen et al., 2005, p. 285).
Despite the increasing interest that arisen with respect to IC during the last decade,
there is still a lack of research with regard to IC reporting in universities (Hellström and
Husted, 2004; Sánchez and Elena, 2006; Bezhani, 2010; Low et al., 2015; Dumay and Cai,
2015; Ramírez et al., 2016), and what does exist has mostly consisted of analyses of
traditional reports as the primary data source, namely the annual reports (Bezhani, 2010),
the social reports (Sangiorgi and Siboni, 2017) and the performance plans (Siboni et al.,
2013). However, in recent years, several scholars (Abeysekera, 2006; Dumay and
Tull, 2007; Dumay and Cai, 2014; Dumay, 2016; Dumay and Guthrie, 2017) have
emphasised the limitations of annual reports as a means of IC disclosure, because they
are not designed to provide IC information but are essentially backward looking and
subject to manipulations that can make them unreliable( Manes et al.,2018).Thereis,thus,
a need to go beyond traditional reporting tools by exploring if different data sources may
provide stakeholders with more information on IC (Edvinsson, 2013; Dumay, 2016;
Cuozzo et al., 2017). In this vein, some scholars highlight several advantages of online
disclosure in the public sector: better accessibility, greater transparency and
accountability towards stakeholders, lowered costs and a timelier dissemination of
information (Meijer, 2007; Gandía and Archidona, 2008; Serrano-Cinca et al., 2009; Gallego
et al., 2011).
The present study fills this gap, providing fresh insight into online IC disclosure in
universities (in particular, via websites and social media) and overcome the limitations of
studies based on traditional tools as annual reports. In doing so, the results offer a new
perspective on the use of online media channels that are nowadays broadly adopted by
organisations to communicate with stakeholders and to enhance their engagement (Dutta,
2010; Guthrie,2014; Dumay and Cai, 2015;Dumay, 2016; Cuozzo et al., 2017;Manes et al., 2018).
In our opinion, universities’online media channels should contain important voluntary
non-financial disclosures relating to a wide range of relevant issues, such asgovernance and
risk management,teaching and research quality, career andemployability prospects, alumni,
accessibility and social mobility issues, human resources, academic and international
reputation, and social, environmental and community contributions, amongst others.
On the one side, we have chosen the website as a communication tool since the
appearance, functionality and content of the website are responsible for transmitting
the essence of the university to the user and for convincing him/her to trust in its services.
The webpages have become, over time, excellent projection tools of any university.
Websites are still the most used medium by all users to search for information.
Although websites are an excellent post-millennium online interaction tool, social media
dominate university corporate communications especially after 2010 where content
marketing now is used as the main vehicle to force the conversation and stimulate demand
and trust in the university services. In this context, the university system has now moved to
more interactive and content-driven modes of university corporate communications, not
exclusively using the website as a vehicle of communication. Social networks are becoming
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a growing object of study in the context of the university research (Clark et al., 2017).
Although the internet has modified the current panorama of universities (Lee, 2017), the
literature that analyses the use that universities make of social media is scarce (Knight and
Kaye, 2016). In this sense, this paper investigates the quantity and quality of IC disclosure
released via social media. The fast growth of Web 2.0 and social media technology is
facilitating the improvement of communication between organisations and their
stakeholders (Waters et al., 2009). It includes several applications, the most common of
which are social network technologies (e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+),
blogs (e.g. WordPress), online communities (e.g. Yahoo Groups and Google Groups) and
wikis (e.g. Wikipedia) (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). Among these applications, social
network sites have become very relevant over the past few decades (Pisano et al., 2017).
Social network sites are internet applications based on Web 2.0 technology that allow
organisations to share information at a high rate, thereby fostering interactivity in
communication flows (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010; Secundo et al., 2017). This paper is
focused on social network sites Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. Whereas
websites are usually well-crafted mono-directional communications tools, social media
platforms are better engagement (data rich) vehicles of authentic content and stakeholder
interaction that may reveal more about the communication of Spanish universities with
their wider stakeholder communities. Social media networks have stronger social influence
on some sectors than conventional online media and, therefore, allow the strategic disclosure
of information to particular stakeholders (Pisano et al., 2017). Studies in relationship
management (Briones et al., 2011) reveal that, in the digital age, social media technologies
are relevant and necessary to improve relationships with all key stakeholders. In this
scenario, we consider that social media seems to contribute to the effectiveness of a
university’s communication, because it makes information more visible and more accessible
to stakeholders and increases corporate dialogue in the context of voluntary IC disclosure.
The main purpose of this paper is to examine the extent and quality of online IC
disclosure at Spanish public universities in relation to university stakeholders’information
needs. Particularly, this paper analyses the amount and quality of IC disclosure provided by
Spanish public universities in their websites and via social media networks (Twitter,
Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram) as well as investigates the views of university
stakeholders concerning IC reporting.
To this end, this paper applies content analysis and a survey. From the survey, it
emerges that stakeholders of Spanish universities are aware of the importance and benefits
deriving from IC reporting, whereas the content analysis found that online IC disclosure
(via websites and social media) in Spanish universities is still in their infancy. Likewise, this
paper evidences that the larger and more internationally focused universities reveal more
online information on IC.
This paper contributes to the existing literature in the following ways. First, it provides
an assessment of online IC disclosure practices in Spanish universities. Second, it provides
an overall view about the use of online media sources (websites and social network sites) in
Spanish public universities as an instrument to increase transparency and public
accountability. Third, it stimulates the debate between Spanish universities and policy
makers concerning the importance related to online IC reporting. The results of the research
may be beneficial as a basis for developing adequate strategies addressing IC disclosure
through the online media channels. The results can serve as encouragement to university
managers to enhance online IC disclosure to meet the information needs of a wider audience.
Studies like this are relevant and necessary in order to propose areas for improvement and
future action plans.
The paper is organised as follows. Section 2 focuses on the importance of IC disclosure in
higher education institutions and the use of the internet to reveal this information. Section 3
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