Methodical Toolkit of Business Potential Evaluation of Autonomous Higher Education Institution

Abstract

The article proves that to increase the competitiveness of the autonomous HEI (Higher Education Institution), it is necessary to fundamentally change the conditions of their activity: to switch to the business model of development, which allows the continuous reforming of production, management, and technological solutions. The study's subject was the economic relations arising during the monitoring and evaluation of the autonomous HEI business potential. The scientific works of domestic and foreign scientists, the data of statistical reports and the results of the autonomous HEI business model testing became the theoretical and methodological basis of the work. The results of the calculations show that the actual value of the business potential integrated index is less than the planned value, i.e. there is a provision to increase this index, and therefore there are prospects for the growth of the business potential of the autonomous HEI. The recommendation presented in the article may be used to ensure the competitiveness of the HEIs in the long term and to improve their business potential.

Keywords: Business undertakingsautonomous HEI business potentialdevelopment strategycompetitivenessbusiness development modelinnovative activities

Introduction

Due to the state universities transition to the autonomy, the activity conditions for each of such institutions are fundamentally changing. The HEI image, its ability to prepare successful specialists in the labor market play an important role, and therefore there is the problem of the HEI competitiveness increasing.

The more efficient and competitive a HEI is, the greater its contribution to GDP and, therefore, the country's national wealth. As a result, the government will mainly support such higher education institutions in particular.

The higher education institutions play a primary role in the system of vocational education. They become a part of the innovation system, a certain bridge between science and industry, performing important functions of the intellectual centers, forming a human capital, and accumulating and realizing breakthrough research and development.

The terms and conditions of the competitive environment in the field of vocational education determine the transition of HEI to the business model of development, which implies a constant search and exploration of the new opportunities to improve their activities in the area of knowledge generation, their educational transfer and practical application.

The variety of the approaches used to reveal the essence of the business potential of the higher education institution and, accordingly, to the allocation of the different components of the said potential leads to the need to develop the methodological tools of its evaluation.

The following scientists were engaged in the economic models building in a highly competitive environment using the game theory and the probability theory: Borch (2015); Marinacci (2015); Abdellaoui et al. , (2011); Gilboa, (2010); Li et al. (2014) and others.

The following works are devoted to the issues of innovative activity development as one of the factors of the competitiveness of the socio-economic systems improving: Stroeva et al. (2015); Yurieva et al. (2012); Wu et al. (2008); Zdrazil et al. (2016); Zieba et al. (2014); Rodriguez (2014) and others.

The approaches to the entrepreneurship study are presented in the works of Kirtzner (2001), Night (2003), Maksimov (2004), Mizes (2005), Shumpeter (2007), Konstantinov (2007), and others.

The review of the scientific papers allowed one to generalize the experience, to identify the key factors in evaluating the business potential of the autonomous HEI and to note that for the present moment, there is an insufficiency in the research of the questions of enhancing business activity in the autonomous HEIs, the evaluation of this activity, and the development of methodological approaches to the strategies of the entrepreneurial potential improving of the autonomous HEI.

All the above-mentioned determine the urgency of the research topic.

Research objectives and scope

The objective of the research is the development of the theoretical provisions and the methodological tools to evaluate the business potential of the HEI, aimed at the effectiveness of its work enhancing.

Within the limits of this objective, the need to solve the following set of problems that reflect the logic and the concept of the study has been identified:

– to reveal the theoretical aspects of HEI entrepreneurship in the new economy conditions;

– to develop an algorithm for the evaluation of the business potential of the higher education institution;

– to propose the recommendations to improve the efficiency of the HEI business potential.

The work is interesting to the federal and regional authorities, as well as to the heads of higher educational institutions. While substantiating the provisions and recommendations, we took into account the requirements of the laws and regulations in the field of the Economic Development of the Russian Federation, subjects of the Russian Federation, ministries, and departments.

The practical significance has the developed algorithm of the HEI business potential evaluation in order to improve the efficiency of the higher education institution work. The conclusions and recommendations set out in the study contribute to ensuring the competitiveness of the autonomous HEIs.

Methods

Multilevel and multidimensional nature of the HEI business potential involves the formation of an index system to measure this potential, reflecting the specificity of the business activity in the field of knowledge generation, the results of their transfer to the educational activity and introduction into production.

To evaluate the business potential, it is offered to use the process approach in the work of the autonomous HEIs. The following conditions must be met:

– the satisfaction of the requirements and constraints on the part of the interested parties;

– the continuous monitoring of compliance of the autonomous HEI business processes to the goals facing them;

– the analysis of the ability of the processes to generate the desired result, including the quality of the educational services.

Using a process approach to the management of the autonomous HEI activity, it is necessary to identify the key business processes, to define the inputs and outputs, the process owners, to establish the requirements for the processes, and to establish the interaction of these processes. The aim of the HEIs management on the basis of the process approach is the maximum satisfaction of the requirements of the internal and external customers with the most effective way.

In this regard, the authors developed the algorithm of the HEI business potential evaluation including the following steps (Figure 1 ).

Step 1: The gathering of the information about the HEI activity.

Step 2: The analysis and processing of the gathered information.

Step 3: The distribution of the business potential indexes by the types of activity (Table 1 ) (Dolzhenkova, 2011).

The use of this technique results from the multidimensional nature of the HEI business potential, involving the formation of the system indexes to measure it, which show the specifics of the business activity in the field of knowledge generation, its transfer and introduction into production. In addition, the indexes should reflect the results of the activity of the small enterprises and other business structures created on the basis of the HEI.

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Step 4: the calculation of the business potential integrated index. The result of the evaluation of this step will be the identification of the problems in the work of the HEI or finding the ways to enhance the business potential integrated index. The authors suggest that the business potential integrated index can be defined by formula 1.

$IBP=\left({\sum }_{i.j=\mathrm{1}}^{\mathrm{4},N_{rrd}} \frac{K_i\cdot N_j}{N_{red}}\right)÷\mathrm{4}\cdot {\sum }_{i=\mathrm{1}}^{\mathrm{4}} F{r}_i\cdot CSC$,(1)

where $IBP$ is the business potential integrated index, rubles; $i$ is the HEI activity type; $j$ is the number of students, enrolled into HEI, people; $K_i$ is the specific ratio of the points amount, received in the result of the business potential indexes distribution by the activity types in the general structure, %; $N_j$ is the number of students, involved into a particular activity type, people; $N_{red}$ is the reduced students contingent, people; ${Fr}_i$ is the financial result for every activity type of the higher education institute, rubles; $CSC$ is the customers satisfaction coefficient.

If the resulting business potential integrated index in the reporting period ( IBP ₁) is less than zero, i.e. the condition IBP ₁ > 0 is not satisfied, then it is necessary to find out the problems in the work of the HEI. If the resulting business potential integrated index in the reporting period ( IBP ₁) is more than zero (i.e. the condition IBP ₁ > 0 is satisfied) and IBP ₁ > IBP ₀ (i.e. the business potential integrated index in the reporting period is higher than in the base period), then it is necessary to find the ways to increase the said index.

Of particular urgency, according to the authors, is the evaluation of the autonomous HEI business potential, as the autonomous educational institutions get the greater freedom of the activity directions choice, which allows the diversification of the financial sources under the market conditions, an increase of the revenues and optimization of costs, but, on the other hand, it can result in the need for the effective financial management (Mokronosov, 2012).

Analysis results

The authors have attempted to evaluate the business potential of Ural Federal University (UrFU). To calculate the index according to formula (1), it is necessary to define a number of indexes, including the specific ratio of the amount of points obtained as a result of the business potential indexes distribution by the activity types in the general structure ( K _i). Table 2 presents the indexes used to evaluate the activity of the UrFU teaching staff (on the basis of the Regulation "On the stimulation of the work of the teaching staff", adopted by the decision of the Academic Council of the UrFU), and distributed by four types of the HEI activities.

It turns out that the largest share among the indexes used for the evaluation of the UrFU teaching staff belongs to the indexes related to the innovation activities - 39.47 %; the lowest share (11.02 %) belongs the indexes related to the research and development activity. The values of the "integrated business potential UrFU" index elements are presented in Table 3 .

At that, N ₁ is the number of students involved in the educational activities; N ₂ is the number of students involved in the research and development activities; N ₃ is the number of students involved in the innovation activities; N ₄ is the number of students involved in other income-generating activity.

In 2014, the actual values of such indexes as "number of students involed into a particular activity type," "reduced students contingent", "the total financial result of all HEI activities" are higher than the planned ones, and the value of such index as a "consumers satisfaction coefficient" is less than the planned one. A similar situation was also observed in 2015.

The values of the UrFU business potential integrated index in 2014 and 2015 were calculated according to formula (1) and presented in Table 4 .

Thus, the actual value of the UrFU business potential integrated index in 2014 and in 2015 is less than the planned one, and the deviation of the IBP index in 2015 regarding 2014 (actual value) amounted to 46.63%. It proves the growth of the autonomous HEI business potential as well as the existing of the reserve for the growth of this indicator. The results of the practical application of the algorithm of the HEI business potential evaluation prove the expediency of its use as an effective tool to enhance the competitiveness of an autonomous higher education institution.

Conclusions

The results of the calculations made according to the author's algorithm indicate that the actual value of the business potential integrated indicator is less than the planned one, i.e., there are some reserves to increase this figure, and, therefore, there are the prospects for the autonomous HEI business potential growth.

This algorithm allows the optimization of the higher education institution activity and providing for its strategic development.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Russian Science Foundation, project no. 15-18-10014 «Projection of optimal socio-economic systems in turbulence of external and internal environment»

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