Financial Management Practices in the European and Southeast Asia Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Are the HEIs in Parallel Lines?

Abstract

This article discusses the initiatives in advancing financial management (FM) and income diversification practices of higher education institutions (HEIs) in Southeast Asia through the experiences of the European HEIs. The initiatives, geared up through the ERASMUS+ European funding programme, aim particularly at three major dimensions; to enhance human, organizational and technical capacities of HEIs to increase efficiency in FM, to further promote income diversification, accountability and transparency leveraging on the systematization of good practice as well as to promote regional integration through the creation of networks amongst financial managers and staffs of the HEIs. The data, emphasizing on models and sources of financing for HEIs, are gathered from HEIs of 3 European countries (Austria, Germany and Spain) as well as 3 Southeast Asian countries (Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand). The data are mainly subjected to the disclosure on publishable internal data with regards to the FM of the universities. The data, spanning in the period from 2013 to 2015, includes several socioeconomic variables such as GDP per capita and population of a country. The data were analyzed and presented in graphs and tables to derive and contemplate the average behavior on FM of all the countries. The main finding on the comparative analysis (micro) reveal that all countries are funded by private and public sources, regardless of the proportion on the allocation.