Fatima A. ALgazo

Northern Border University, Arar, Saudi Arabia

ABSTRACT

Universities are increasingly demanded to demonstrate accountability, transparency, and performance effectiveness, particularly in emerging economies where performance-based funding and accreditation pressures are intensifying. Governance has therefore become a critical concern, yet existing studies often treat governance and performance measurement separately. Strategic Management Accounting (SMA) offers a potential bridge by integrating financial and non-financial information into decision-making, but its role in higher education governance remains underexplored.

This paper develops a conceptual framework that links university governance, SMA practices, and institutional performance. Grounded in New Institutional Sociology (NIS) and Stakeholder Theory, the framework explains how external pressures and diverse stakeholder expectations shape the adoption of SMA tools such as the Balanced Scorecard, benchmarking, and value chain analysis. Governance provides the structural bases for accountability and transparency, SMA acts as the mediating mechanism, and institutional performance, measured through teaching quality, research productivity, employability, and social responsibility, emerges as the outcome.

The study contributes theoretically by integrating fragmented literature and positioning SMA as a mediator between governance and performance. Practically, it offers policymakers and university leaders, especially in emerging economies, a structured model to align governance reforms with measurable outcomes.

Keywords: University governance; Strategic Management Accounting (SMA); performance measurement; accountability; New Institutional Sociology; Stakeholder Theory.