Administrative capacity assessment in higher education: The case of universities in Vietnam

Abstract Administrative staff are a crucial human capital input in tertiary education institutions. Given the substantial investment in recruitment and selection of administrative staff, efficient and effective use of these staff affects the organisational and financial performance of universities. Whereas much concern has been placed on the performance of academic staff, the ability of a university to obtain an optimal level of administrative staff has not been addressed. This paper investigates whether the usage capacity of administrative staff is maximised in Vietnamese universities. Vietnam has implemented several education reform policies with the aim to improve the standing of its universities in the world’s education market. The process is not only about obtaining and delivering good education quality, but also efficiently using human resources to reach optimal performance and sustainable development. Employing the stochastic frontier input requirement model with data on 112 Vietnamese universities, we examine the presence of excess administrative capacity in these universities, given the existing student outputs and other input resources. We find that, on average, the level of excess administrative capacity is 3.4%, implying an economic loss in universities. In addition, under the analysis of determinants of the variances of the inefficiency effects and the error terms in the input-requirement function, our findings reveal that excess administrative capacity varies according to location and ownership. Some policy implications are discussed to address excess capacity of administrative staff in the Vietnamese context and some key lessons learned for the rest of the world.