Information Asymmetry, Signalling and Screening vs. Audit Culture – Selected Challenges for Academic Governance
Information Asymmetry, Signalling and Screening vs. Audit Culture – Selected Challenges for Academic Governance

Summary/Abstract: A change can be observed in contemporary academic governance – from a trust-based culture towardsthe audit culture based on accountability. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the problems of suchaccountability from the economics-of-information perspective. The approach of the article is foundedon a review of the most relevant contributions in the area of information asymmetry, signalling andscreening and on the analysis based on deductive reasoning. The main finding of the paper is thatasymmetrical information embodied in academic work challenges the management of academic staff.Signalling and screening methods, which are popular in business and relevant for the audit culture inthe case of academic environment, face important obstacles. This is due to the specificity of work ofacademic professionals, which is in fact a credence good. It is also predicted that the pressure towardsaccountability could be used for redistribution of resources in favour of privileged groups of academicstaff; privileged in the sense of easiness of measurement and signalling of research achievements.

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