Accountability for Higher Education through Sustainability Reporting (A Critical Paradigm Use Communicative Action Theory)

Accountability has become a central issue of accounting literature and practice, especially in the non-profit and public sectors. It is due to the increasing public awareness of the organisation sustainability. One of accountability mechanism for higher education (HE) is publishing an annual report. It is expected that all stakeholder of HE can assess their objectives and performance both financial and non financial aspects. Decision usefulness paradigm which currently dominate accounting theory is not adequate basis for considering external reporting. It is needed a movement towards accountability paradigm that need different reporting model. This study purpose to construct sustainability reporting model using communicative action theory. This means that communication have to be free from domination and the concensus will create mutual understanding situation. The object of this study is at the Trunojoyo University (TU) that one of universities in Indonesia have done organizational change from private to public sector in 2001th. The findings show that there are relationship between organizational change and accountability mechanism. When TU is private university so that accountability mechanism refer to material aspect that focuse to fund supplier (foundation), and sustainability paradigm refer to material aspect such as economic, while TU as state university so that accountability mechanism refer to material and spiritual aspects that focus to economic, environmental, society and God