Original Article

International Journal of Electrical Engineering

& Education
Construction of a 0(0) 1–8
! The Author(s) 2020
performance evaluation Article reuse guidelines:
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system for private higher DOI: 10.1177/0020720920930347
journals.sagepub.com/home/ije

education institutions in
China based on balanced
scorecard

Ying Zhao , Aiyun Zhang ,

Xucui Li and Xuan Wang

Abstract
Private higher education has become an indispensable part of Chinese higher education
currently. Compared with government funded education, private higher education
institutions lack a performance evaluation system that accords with their characteristics
and strategic requirement of development. The performance evaluation of private
higher education institutions is constructed creatively by using the balanced scorecard,
a systematic performance evaluation tool guided by strategic objectives. The system
can enhance the core competence of private higher education institutions and boost
healthy development of private higher education institutions.

Keywords
Balanced scorecard, private higher education, performance evaluation

Introduction
Since the reform and opening up, with the popularization of higher education in
China, private higher education institutions have emerged and developed rapidly.

Shandong Women’s University, China

Corresponding author:
Ying Zhao, Shandong Women’s University, Jinan 250002, China.
Email: 31037@sdwu.edu.cn
2 International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education 0(0)

Private higher education institutions have become an important part of China

educational career, from being a “beneficial supplement” to public higher educa-
tion institutions to co-development with public higher education institutions, and
now are in the transformation stage from scale expansion to connotation construc-
tion. Performance evaluation is an effective way to promote the connotation con-
struction of higher education institutions. Currently, the performance evaluation
system of public higher education institutions in China is comparatively perfect,
but private higher education institutions have not yet formed a performance eval-
uation index system that conforms to their own characteristics. The balanced
scorecard (BSC) is a symbolic performance indicator system proposed by
Kaplan and Norton after studying 12 companies; it can implement the overall
strategy of the organization step by step into specific operational measurement
indicators and target values. To construct a performance evaluation system of
private higher education institutions using the balanced scorecard is advantageous
to realize its strategic objectives and promote its good sustainable development.
The performance evaluation system not only fully considers the characteristics of
private institutions of higher education, but also considers the comprehensiveness
of the evaluation system.1,2

Literature review
The theoretical and practical research on performance evaluation of higher edu-
cation institutions began in the 1970s. The British government (1985) put forward
the idea of linking teacher’s performance with salary in “Better Schools” to
improve the educational level of schools by managing teacher’s performance. In
the strategic indicators system for improving higher education performance, the U.
S. Government (1998) constructed a performance evaluation system covering 13
indicators in four aspects: financial capital, material capital, human capital, and
information capital. The British College Grants Committee (2003) has constructed
a performance evaluation system covering more than 70 indicators in more than
ten aspects, such as “the source and expenditure of funds for universities, the
enrollment of students and the employment status of graduates,” in the system
of management statistics and performance indicators for British Colleges and
Universities. Based on the input-output theory, the Chinese Academy of
Educational Sciences (2009) has constructed a performance evaluation system of
16 indicators in the Performance Evaluation Report of Chinese Higher
Institutions. Balanced scorecard (BSC) was introduced into China at the end of
the 20th century and widely used in various industries and institutions. Zhang
made a detailed analysis of the characteristics of the four dimensions of BSC,
and believed that the introduction of BSC into the performance management of
Chinese universities would have a good effect. Wang and Wang constructed the
performance evaluation index system of Chinese universities from four dimensions
of the BSC and discussed how to give weight to each index. Through reviewing the
existing literatures, we can see that all countries attach great importance to the
Zhao et al. 3

performance evaluation of higher education institutions. At the same time, the

BSC is a tool that can be applied to both enterprise performance evaluation and
higher education institutions performance evaluation. Therefore, it is necessary to
construct a performance evaluation index system suitable for China’s private
higher education institutions by using the BSC to promote their good sustainable
development.3–5

The principle of BSC

The BSC includes four dimensions: finance, customer, internal process, learning,
and growth. The principles discussed here can be used for a single electrical engi-
neering college or course as well. We can make evaluation metrics for each elec-
trical engineering course. The BSC theory discussed here is presented in a detailed
way so that we can apply the same at all levels of evaluation in electrical engineer-
ing courses.6,7

BSC theory and performance evaluation of private higher

education institutions
Private higher education institutions are different from public higher education
institutions. The performance evaluation index system should highlight the char-
acteristics of private higher education institutions. The general strategic objective
of the development of private higher education institutions is to meet the needs of
market and society, make students better go to society, take the improvement of
teaching quality as the core, constantly improve the quality of personnel training
and school-running level, create a diversified talent training model, implement
personalized education, build a healthy personality growth mechanism for stu-
dents, and serve local economic development. Combining the BSC, we need to
achieve the specific strategic objectives of four dimensions: finance, customers,
internal processes, learning, and growth, as shown in Figure 1.8

The financial dimension: Improving fund utilizing efficiency

Compared with public higher education institutions, private higher education insti-
tutions lack the support of national education funds and are responsible for their
own profits and losses. Teaching expenditure is almost entirely dependent on their
own income. At present, the income of private higher education institutions mainly
comes from tuition fees, research funds and so on. Expenditure is mainly used for
infrastructure construction and teaching process. Adequate financial support guar-
antees the realization of the strategic objectives of private higher education insti-
tutions, which requires institutions to seize the inflow and use of funds, on the one
hand, increase the inflow of funds through various financing channels, on the other
hand, strictly follow the budget when using funds, reduce the risk of using funds,
and ultimately achieve the purpose of improving the efficiency of the use of funds.
4 International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education 0(0)

Figure 1. Four-dimensional map of BSC.

The customer dimension: Raising customer satisfaction degree

Private higher education institutions have multiple customers, such as students,
parents, employers, and government departments. In order to achieve their strategic
objectives, institutions need to meet and balance the needs of different customers as
far as possible. Students and parents hope that the private higher education insti-
tutions will have a good reputation and high popularity, and they will be able to find
jobs smoothly after graduation. Employers hope that private higher education insti-
tutions can cultivate students who meet their job needs. Government departments
hope that private higher education institutions can serve the local economy.
Therefore, private higher education institutions need to improve customer satisfac-
tion from two aspects of customer recognition and influence.

Internal flow dimension: Improving teaching service ability

Smooth and effective internal processes can improve the operational efficiency and
core competitiveness of private higher education institutions. On the one hand,
institutions need to establish characteristic specialties according to their own advan-
tages, rationally set up more practical curriculum system according to the needs of
employing units, and increase cooperation with employing units to provide students
with good practice platform and opportunities to improve teaching ability; on the
other hand, as higher education institutions, the level of scientific research represents
the level of institutions to a certain extent. Therefore, institutions also need to pay
attention to scientific research output and cooperation between industry, University,
and research, and constantly improve their scientific research capacity.

The study and the growth dimension: Improving the ability

of sustainable development
If private higher education institutions do not attach importance to the establish-
ment of long-term learning and growth mechanism, they will lose the sustainability
Zhao et al. 5

of development. The construction of learning and growth mechanism includes two

aspects. On the one hand, it is necessary to create a lifelong learning environment,
improve the quality of working environment, streamline administrative depart-
ments, and improve efficiency. On the other hand, we should establish incentive
mechanism for teachers and administrative staff, strengthen the training and
assessment of staff, especially encourage full-time teachers to continue their further
study and improve their professional level.9

Construction of performance evaluation system for private

higher education institutions
According to the analysis above, referring to the research report on performance
evaluation of institutions of higher education and the qualification evaluation
scheme of undergraduate teaching in general institutions of higher education,
the specific evaluation indexes are constructed according to the four dimensions
of the BSC.

Specific indicators of financial dimension

The strategic goal of the financial dimension is to improve the efficiency of the use
of funds: in terms of the source of funds, the growth rate of tuition income, the
growth rate of education and scientific research funds, and the growth rate of
income-generating income are selected to evaluate; in terms of the use of funds,
the growth rate of teaching expenditure and the deviation rate of budget imple-
mentation are selected to evaluate.10,11

Specific indicators of customer dimension

The strategic goal of customer dimension is to improve customer satisfaction: in
terms of customer acceptance, three indicators are selected to evaluate the first
volunteer rate of enrollment, employment rate, and employment professional
counterpart rate; in terms of influence, two indicators are selected to evaluate
school ranking and media exposure rate.12

Specific indicators of internal flow dimension

The strategic goal of the internal process dimension is to improve the teaching
service ability: in terms of teaching ability, four indicators are selected to evaluate:
the rate of characteristic specialty, the rate of excellent courses, the rate of national
famous teachers and the rate of excellent students’ achievements; in terms of sci-
entific research ability, two indicators are selected to evaluate the number of
scientific research projects per teacher and the number of papers published by
each teacher.13
6 International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education 0(0)

Table 1. Performance evaluation index system of private higher education institutions.

Dimension Factor Specific indicators

Finance Capital source Tuition income growth rate

The growth rate of education and
scientific research funds
Income-creating income growth rate
Capital use The growth rate of teaching expenditure
Deviation rate of budget implementation
Customer Customer The first voluntary rate of enrollment
accreditation Rate of employment
The counterpart rate of major employment
Influence School ranking
The rate of media exposure
Internal process Teaching ability Characteristic professional rate
Excellent course rate
National prominent teacher ratio
Excellent rate of student achievement
Scientific research Number of scientific research project
ability establishment per teacher
Number of papers published by per teacher
Learning and Environmental Information openness
growth management The degree of administrative flow simplification
Personnel Senior talent ratio
management Teacher training costs per teacher
Frequency of academic activities per teacher

Specific indicators of the study and the growth dimension

The strategic goal of learning and growth dimension is to improve the ability of
sustainable development: in environmental management, two indicators are
chosen to evaluate the openness of information and the simplification of admin-
istrative process; in personnel management, three indicators are chosen to evaluate
the ratio of senior talents, the cost of training per teacher and the frequency of
academic activities per teacher.14
According to the above analysis, the performance evaluation index system of
private higher education institutions is summarized as shown in Table 1.

Conclusion
Private higher education in China has developed rapidly since the reform and
opening up. It has played an important role in the popularization of higher edu-
cation in China and the development of local economy. But up to now, there are
few studies on the performance evaluation of higher education, especially private
higher education, compared with foreign studies. Private higher education
Zhao et al. 7

institutions lack the support of government financial funds and need to raise the
funds needed for development by themselves, so they are in a weak position in the
competition of higher education. A good performance evaluation system suitable
for the characteristics of private education is available can improve its competi-
tiveness and promote the healthy development of private higher education insti-
tutions in China. This paper constructs a performance evaluation system suitable
for private higher education institutions by using the BSC. Specifically, the index
evaluation of customer dimension provides specific strategic objectives for private
higher education institutions, the index evaluation of financial dimension provides
financial guarantee for the realization of strategic objectives of private higher edu-
cation institutions, the index evaluation of internal process dimension provides
specific solutions for the realization of the strategic goals of private higher educa-
tion institutions, the evaluation of indicators of learning and growth dimensions
provides a long-term, sustainable motivation for the realization of the strategic
goals of private higher education institutions.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication
of this article.

ORCID iDs
Ying Zhao https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3204-8212
Aiyun Zhang https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2924-7405
Xucui Li https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3961-5427
Xuan Wang https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7301-484X

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