ACCOUNTABILITY THROUGH THE ANNUAL REPORTS OF STATE UNIVERSITIES IN TURKEY

State universities in Turkey have been implementing performance-based budgeting system for about ten years. The system aims to improve the effectiveness of service delivery by enabling universities to allocate their resources according to their own specific objectives taking into account the views of their stakeholders. This system, which is based on outputs and results, requires state universities to disclose their performance level to the public through annual reports. The evidence on the accountability level of state universities in Turkey is very scarce. Therefore, this study aims to demonstrate to what extent the state universities in Turkey can account for their stakeholders through the annual reports they published. The authors conducted a content analysis of performance audit reports on 59 state universities published by the Turkish Court of Accounts, the external audit body, to achieve this goal.