Common ground across the divide: Financial management policies of schools in contrasting public education systems
Warwick Baines
Working Paper No. 04/07
May 2007
About the Authors
- Warwick Baines
Associate Lecturer
School of Accounting and Computer Science
Charles Sturt University
Bathurst NSW 2795
Australia - Phone 61 2 6338 4438
Charles Sturt University – Faculty of Business Working Paper Series
Managing Editor: Associate Professor Jayne Bisman, School of Accounting, Bathurst
Editors: Dr P. Mathews, School of Commerce, Wagga Wagga
Associate Professor M. O'Mullane, School of Business, Albury
Dr R. Tierney, School of Marketing and Management, Bathurst
Dr D Ardagh, School of Commerce, Wagga Wagga
Ms K Mather, School of Computing and Mathematics, Wagga Wagga
The Faculty of Business Working Paper Series is intended to provide staff and students with a means of communicating new and evolving ideas in order to encourage academic debate. Working papers, as the title suggests, should not necessarily be taken as completed works or final expressions of opinion. All working papers are subject to review prior to publication by one or more editors or referees familiar with the discipline area. Normally, working papers may be freely quoted and/or reproduced provided proper reference to the author and source is given. When a working paper is published on a restricted basis, notice of such restriction will appear on this page.
Table of Contents
- Abstract
- Introduction
- Review of literature
- The need for an exploratory Australian study
- Data presentation and analysis
- A theory for explaining the similarities in different SBM schools
- Conclusion
- References
Abstract
Australian governments have granted differing levels of financial management authority and responsibility to their schools—exemplified in the largely decentralised Victorian and the largely centralised New South Wales (NSW) systems. To date insufficient consideration has been given to assessing the capacity of schools to actually manage their own finances and whether such capacity differs between centralised and decentralised systems. This paper reports on the financial management policies of two large regional high schools, one in Victoria and the other in NSW. Although these schools had been granted differing levels of financial management autonomy their financial management policies were found to be substantively similar. A potential explanation for this was subsequently found in the theory of institutions. Hypotheses from this theory are outlined and found to be supported by the research findings.