Controllership practices adopted in private institutions of higher education (ipes) in the midwest region of Brazil

Abstract

This study aims to identify the adoption of controllership practices by managers of Private Institutions of Higher Education (IPES) of the Midwest Region of Brazil. It also sought to identify the characteristics of IPES and analyze the association between them. The controllership practices addressed in this study were raised in the literature and submitted to the opinion of specialists in this knowledge area for validation. The data were collected through a questionnaire, with Likert scales, getting 25 responses that make up the research sample. The most adopted practices in IPES management are: performance evaluation, capital budget and the analysis of investment return. To investigate the association between controllership practices, according to the classification of the four stages of IFAC (1998), and characteristics of IPES, it was used the Fisher’s Exact Test. An association was observed between the adoption of controllership practices of the different stages of Managerial Accounting and variables such as size, administrative classification and economic performance. There is an association between internal control in asset protection and the size of IPES. The analysis practice cost-volume-profit (CVL) is more adopted by for-profit institutions. Internal control in asset protection is more used by IPES that indicated unfavorable economic performance. As for the third and fourth stages practices, only the meta-funding showed a greater association with small size IPES.