University Budgeting: Creating Incentives for Change? AIR 1991 Annual Forum Paper.

This paper investigates the role of the budget as an instrument for realizing strategic change and as an influencing factor on the behavior of university faculty within the decentralized educational environment of the Netherlands. It distinguishes between a base component (lump sum allocation) and a special-purpose component (earmarked allocation) in budgeting. It also analyses several approaches to budget development in relation to the implementation of change. Major conclusions are: (1) that in Dutch higher education the budget is a limited instrument for the implementation of strategic change with some use in strengthening developments already initiated within a faculty but ineffective to implement change in a top-down manner; and (2) that change at the faculty level is more effectively stimulated by control devices than by detailed planning instruments. Section 1 of this paper provides a brief introduction to the Dutch higher education system. Section 2 describes some relevant aspects of university organization. Section 3 makes some general remarks about university budgeting and distinguishes a number of budgeting systems. Sections 4 and 5 analyze these budgeting systems as management tools for the implementation of strategic change, using experiences at the University of Utrecht as background. Section 6 presents some general conclusions. Contains 31 references. (GLR)