DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY WITH SPECIALISATION IN MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING

SERFONTEIN, Carla

 Carla Serfontein, born on 20 July 1988 in Pretoria, South Africa, matriculated at Hoërskool Waterkloof in 2006 as head girl, top academic achiever and Dux Excellence. Carla obtained her BCom Accounting degree at the University of Pretoria (UP) in 2009. She completed her Honours in Accounting in 2010 and was accepted as an Academic trainee at the UP in 2011. She registered as a Chartered Accountant in 2012 after passing both required professional examinations. She completed her Master’s degree with distinction in 2019 and is currently a senior lecturer at the University of the Free State’s School of Accountancy. With her thesis, titled: COST EFFICIENCY AT SOUTH AFRICAN UNIVERSITIES, Carla statistically analysed the financial statements of a sample of sixteen of the 26 South African publicly funded universities from 2010 to 2019 to assess their efficiency in managing various categories of expenses and revenue streams by applying Management and Cost accounting principles. Universities as typical service organisations are characterised by having predominantly fixed costs (expenses) with almost no causal relationship to the primary cost objective of providing affordable education to ensure employability. She illustrates that conventional Management and Cost accounting techniques, in the absence of a direct input-output relationship, fail to ensure cost efficiency and do not prepare universities for the disruption of potentially declining student enrolments caused by the Fourth Industrial Revolution that was fast-tracked by COVID-19. Her scholarly contribution to highlighting the flaws in conventional budgeting techniques to ensure cost efficiency and maximising input-output relationships is truly commendable.

 Supervisor: Dr C Crous

Co-Supervisor: Prof AVA Smit