The University’s Vision, Mission and Goals: Attaining Academia's Perception

The University’s vision, mission and goals contribute to the success and survival of the academic institution in facing intense competition globally indistinctive for public and private universities. A public university holds the social responsibility without emphasizing on bottom line but a private higher learning institution must focus on its bottom line figure in order to survive and most of all to maximize the shareholders' wealth. An online survey was conducted to the academic staff of a private university in identifying the academia perception of the university’s, mission and goals. Keyword: University, Vision, Mission, Goals. A. Introduction Globalization is inevitable and unavoidable which forces the businesses, individuals, society and government to be competitive in order to face the waves of changes. Most of our daily life activities, business transactions, business operation, human resources and government would be affected and need to be aligned with the pace of globalization. In order for individuals, companies, societies and government to maintain sustainability in the competitive global environment, continuous revision of the vision, mission and goals must be done. This is to ensure that the waves of globalization would not drown the organization because they have strong foundations formed in their vision, mission and goals. Vision Vision is a long-term strategic plan whereby it will show the direction of an organization in the future. James Kouzes and Barry Posner define vision as an ideal and unique image of the future. Linda Livingstone (1998) mentioned that vision must be accompanied by the power to motivate others (Livingstone,1998). B. Literature Review Vision, mission and goals is vital for any organization since it will direct the path of the organization in achieving its long and short term objectives. However, setting vision, mission and goals is not an easy process. Should a university just focus on its monetary achievement only as the traditional business organization do or should the university emphasis solely on research efforts by its faculty members and dismiss teaching from its picture? These are some of the questions that arise in the boardroom and shareholders meeting and seldom it would be discussed among the managerial and executive levels or among the academician for universities. Traditionally, business has measured performance using financial measures as basis for accountability and comparability (Porter,1992, pg 73) concluded that the United States of America businesses approach to excellence measurement [financial measurement]: • is less supportive of long-term investment because of the emphasis on improving short-term returns to influence current share prices; • favors those forms of investment for which returns are most readily measurable (this leads to an over-investment in assets whose value can be easily calculated); and • leads to under-investment in intangible assets – in internal development projects, product and process innovation, employee skills, and customer satisfaction – whose short term returns are more difficult to measure. The dynamic change in organizations as innovative technology and globalization is taking place, performance measurement could not be used solely as the performance measurement. Brancato (1995) supported this by laying out several factors, which make financial accounting measurement needs other performance indicators. Some of the reasons are accounting data is too historical; lack predictive power; reward the wrong behavior; are focused on inputs and not outputs; do not capture key business changes until it is too late; reflect functions, not cross-functional processes, within a company; and give inadequate consideration to difficult-to-quantify resources such as intellectual capital (Brancato, 1995). Kaplan and Norton (1996), the fathers of Balance Score Card, suggested that the performance measurement should be measured in a wider perspective using balance score-card system. The Balanced Scorecard translates an organization's mission and strategy into a comprehensive set of performance measures that provides a framework for a strategic measurement and management system (Kaplan and Norton, 1996, p. 2). In Balanced Scorecard language, vision, mission, and strategy at the corporate level are decomposed into different views, or perspectives, as seen through the eyes of business owners, customers and other stakeholders, managers and process owners, and employees (Kaplan and Norton, 1996). Basically there are four factors in consideration using Kaplan and Norton Balance Score Card. The owners of the business are represented by the Financial perspective. Customers and stakeholders (customers are a subset of the larger universe of stakeholders) are represented by the Customer perspective; managers and process owners by the Internal business Processes perspective. And employees and infrastructure (capacity) by the Learning and growth perspective (Kaplan and Norton, 1996). Table 1: Top 5 Universities in Asia 2000 (Asiaweek) University Academic Reputation Student Selectivity Faculty Resources Research Fin. Resourc es Overall Score 20% 25% 25% 20% 10% 100% Kyoto University (Japan) 20 25 20.49 11.48 6.20 83.17 Tohoku University (Japan) 16.47 24.45 21.10 13.58 7.44 83.05 University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong) 17.57 24.11 22.27 10.47 8.13 82.55 Seoul National University (South Korea) 19.17 24.99 19.63 12.15 6.02 81.96 National University of Singapore (Singapore) 19.13 23.59 18.94 10.22 6.07 77.96 Asiaweek (2000) had conducted an effort in ranking multidiscipline universities in Asia with 5 different factors. The factors identified however, are academic reputation, student selectivity, faculty resources, research and financial resources. The factors will be given a weight and Kyoto University was ranked first in 2000. In this research, we are evaluating 5 factors, which are a combination of from Kaplan and Norton and Asiaweek indicators. The factors in consideration are customer oriented, image building, rules and regulation, academic advancement and profit and wealth maximization to suit the academia industry.