Non-Financial Information versus Financial as a Key to the Stakeholder Engagement: A Higher Education Perspective

• Main Authors: Laura Saraite-Sariene, Juana Alonso-Cañadas, Federico Galán-Valdivieso, Carmen Caba-Pérez
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2019-12-01
• Series: Sustainability
• Subjects: sustainability accounting standards; social responsibility reporting; web 2.0 tools; accountability
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/1/331

In light of the increased demand for greater accountability and legitimacy, new disclosure mechanisms based on non-financial transparency have emerged. Universities cannot be left behind with respect to these social demands. In addition, continuous competition in excellence is driving higher education organizations to exhibit a greater visibility of their results, necessarily incorporating more non-financial aspects to boost stakeholder engagement. The novelty of this work lies in the analysis of the real state of non-financial vs. financial information in both public and private universities and in the exploration of their influence on stakeholder online engagement. To this end, a content analysis of the universities’ web pages and Facebook profiles was conducted, and a multivariable linear regression analysis was performed. The main results show that private and larger universities that lead Webometrics for Google Scholar Citations, and those that have gradually been adopting financial reporting, are the most interested in implementing Facebook as a two-way communication strategy. It seems that stakeholders react more to financial transparency and, therefore, universities still prefer financial disclosure to improve accountability.