A Framework for Evolution in the Financial and Operational Accountability Systems of Iranian Public Universities from the Expert's Perspective

In recent years, public universities have faced many socio-economic changes. On one hand, these universities are under the main influence of the independence resulted from Article 49 of law of the Fourth Economic, Social and Cultural Development Plan of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and on the other hand, they have undergone double pressure due to the alterations in the number of students and decrease in the per capita budget, etc. According to these conditions, inevitably, it is too necessary to develop an evolution in the financial and operational accountability systems. The aim of this study is to develop a framework for an evolution in the financial and operational accountability systems of public universities in Iran based on Lauder's reformed model.
The method of the research is deductive reasoning, and it is a descriptive survey; the type of this research is correlational, and in terms of purpose, it is applied and descriptive. The statistical population of this research include all experts in the field of evolution in the financial and operational accountability systems of the universities from 2014 to 2015. This research has been implemented by using the Delphi technique in two cycles, and for data analysis, Binomial t–test, Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Kruskal-Wallis and Friedman tests and SPSS Software Version 20 have been used.
The main incentive for evolution in the financial and operational accountability systems of Iranian public universities is the need for cost price information for pricing, and the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology and the Audit Organization were recognized, respectively, as promoters and operators of evolution. A change in conservative view of society plays an important role as a cultural factor. In between, the financial managers should take the responsibility for the leadership of this evolution in the universities and it should be executed gradually in long term.
In this research, the ability of Lauder's reformed model for predicting, which has been used in many countries to explain the process of evolution, has been documented in relation to the evolution of the financial and operational accountability systems of public universities in Iran and in its environmental conditions.