Value based management systems in Higher Education: a case study

The financial pressures facing UK universities has increased the demand for financial management information whilst extra governmental funding has had a pre-requisite of more advanced accounting systems . New approaches to financial systems within the sector such as Activity Based Management (ABM) are sporadic and inconclusive regarding their effectiveness whilst the Government has advocated a sector wide implementation of a standardised full economic costing known as Transparency Review. Value Based Management (VBM) provides an alternative methodology costing institutions’ activities down to appropriate levels of activity e.g. by degree programme, linking the activities to income streams arriving at value added. The paper seeks to describe the methodology using a case study of its application to an actual academic department, comparing the model’s logic to two contemporary techniques (ABM and VBM), whilst critically reviewing its usefulness.

The journal in which this article was published ceased production in 2006. As a result volume, issue and pagination data for this article have not been verified.