Research on the Avoidance of Moral Hazard in Higher Education Evaluation of China Under Multi-agent Mode

Abstract

The education evaluation agencies will undertake education evaluation task and will form principal-agent relationships with the governments with the separation reform of supervision, running and evaluation in China. Because of bounded rationality and information asymmetry, it was already a big problem to avoid the moral hazard of an education evaluation agency in a principal-agent relationship involving only one principal and one agent. In reality, the principal-agent relationship is often more complicated. Of particular concern is that the situation of "one principal-multiple agents" in the evaluation of higher education has emerged. The coexistence of "multiple" education evaluation agencies, such as the official agencies, the semi-official agencies, the agencies affiliated with the university, and the third-party agencies, has taken shape. By using critical discourse analysis, this study attempts to argue that avoiding the moral hazard of higher education evaluation under the "multi-agent" mode becomes a research issue that must be squarely addressed. The paper concluded that in "multi-agent" mode, although the possibility of implied moral hazard in higher education evaluation increases, if the "relative performance" evaluation mechanism can be understood and effective measures can be taken, not only will it not lead to the consequences of moral hazard being more difficult to avoid, but it will greatly enhance the effectiveness of the avoidance of moral hazard. The conclusion has important reference significance on how to effectively use the "multi-agent" mode to avoid the moral hazard of higher education evaluation.

Sustainability as cultural value in islamic private higher education

“…Thus, principals disseminate VMMT to agents (internally) through the strategies, procedures, and rules implementation for achieving them and culture. Based on a previous study in China, there is a reform in the culture of education where agents are responsible for multi principals (Sun & Xu, 2019), higher education autonomy culture (Atang, 2021;Ngo & Meek, 2019). Such has been widely discussed between government and public universities (Auld, 2010;Kivistö, 2007;Raudla et al, 2015;Wiseman, 1999;Yallew et al, 2018), not all higher education depends on government funding.…”

“…Agency conflict occurs in all organizations and every management level in universities, companies, joint ventures, government bureaus (Jensen & Meckling, 1976). Conflicts arise when agents are evaluated by official agencies, semi-official agencies, agencies affiliated with universities, and third-party agencies as multi-principals (Sun & Xu, 2019). This culture of autonomy aggravates problems in public higher education, which has a multi-level organizational structure.…”

“…The problem of asymmetric information occurs in many cases, such as universities as principals with many faculties as agents are complex and large organizations. A conflict of goals leads to differences in vision, mission, and goals (Kivistö, 2007;Sun & Xu, 2019;Wiseman, 1999). Research by Wiseman (1999) reported asymmetric information occurs when the university as principals do not communicate well about the vision and mission to the faculty as an agent.…”

“…IPHE established in a Muslim-majority country reduces the asymmetric information problem because Islamic values will become a higher education culture about human status and human actions to serve God (Muchtarom, 2016;Tarihoran & Rahimah, 2019). This situation is aggravated when the complexity of organizational structures and private institutions are relatively less dependent on the government, resulting in more significant agency problems than other organizations (Sun & Xu, 2019;Reschiwati et al, 2021;Wiseman, 1999).…”