Title: Relationship between government and public sector universities in the perspective of agency theory: a brief review

Authors: Zaheer Abbas; Abd Rahman Bin Ahmad; Muhammad Saeed Shahbaz; Muhammad Mujtaba Asad

Addresses: Faculty of Technology Management and Business, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, Parit Raja, Batu Pahat, Malaysia ' Faculty of Technology Management and Business, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, Parit Raja, Batu Pahat, Malaysia ' Faculty of Technology Management and Business, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, Parit Raja, Batu Pahat, Malaysia ' Department of Education Management, Sukkur Institute of Business Administration University, Airport Road, Sukkur, Pakistan

Abstract: The aim of this study is to analyse the relationship between government and public sector universities in the perspective of agency theory and propose a theoretical framework that will highlight the various aspects of the principle and agents. In this perspective government plays a main role as principal while public sector universities are as agent and this relationship is known as agency theory. This relationship normally has two major issues such as goal conflicts and information asymmetries. Correspondingly, in this review paper, systematic approach and content analysis approach have been adopted. The reviewed literature revealed that the government provides performance based grants to the public sector universities so government have pursued some expectations from public sector universities like accountability and transparency of the funds. Similarly, it has been highlighted that to verify the relationship between government and public sector universities in the context of agency theory because there is a sheer need to conduct empirical research studies.

Keywords: agency theory; goal conflicts; information asymmetries; public universities; performance-based grant; PBG.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSOM.2021.118243

International Journal of Services and Operations Management, 2021 Vol.40 No.2, pp.188 - 202

Received: 12 May 2019
Accepted: 29 May 2019
Published online: 18 Oct 2021 *

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