Using budgets to measure the financial efficiency of higher education institutions: a case study of Tikrit University

A budget is a dynamic tool used by management accounting to set a financial plan, control the resources, communicate among divisions, and subsequently reach financial efficiency by achieving the budgeted target. This paper aims to empirically investigate the use of budgets to measure the financial efficiency of higher education institutions, the Tikrit University in Iraq as a case study. Sixteen different budgets for a period of five years of data (2015-2019) were considered. Primary data was collected through the Delphi method and the min-max normalisation technique was employed. Partial adjustment model and fixed effect panel data analysis were used to measure the financial efficiency. The study observed that Tikrit University performed virtuously in the matter of achieving the budgeted target. Some contradictory results are found in the individual budget efficiency, which needs to be investigated further with appropriate data.