| After a century of development, internal control theory has been gradually improved and successfully applied in enterprises. As an important product of the modern management theory and practice, internal control has become essential for the management of university development. However, China’s current internal control theory and successful application are mostly limited in companies, while they are rarely used in colleges and universities. For this reason, in recent years, colleges and universities’imperfections of the internal control construction lead to the inefficiency of colleges and universities, ignorance of the cost-effectiveness, economic issues and so forth. It not only affects the normal operation of colleges and universities, but also causes significant damage to the social reputation of colleges and universities. To improve the effectiveness and comprehensive competitive strength of colleges and universities management, one must establish sound internal controls, promoting sustainable development in colleges and universities.Therefore, this paper firstly puts international research status of internal controls in order, and focuses on the US COSO Internal Control Theory. Compared with companies, this paper puts forward internal controls in the applicability of colleges and universities management. The author thinks successfully applied to the enterprise’s internal control theory can be applied to colleges and universities.Secondly, the author uses the "three goals" of US COSO Internal Control theory, which is "the effectiveness and efficiency of operations, financial reporting reliability and compliance with applicable laws and regulations". Then the author tries to convert the "three goals" theory of "legal compliance, financial reporting, efficiency, effectiveness, and sustainable development" into "four goals" theory, according to the non-profit colleges and universities and operations management characteristics, and takes it as a target selection of internal controls in colleges and universities development.Thirdly, the author takes ABC University as a case in empirical research. By means of combination of questionnaire and interview survey, the authenticity and validity of complementarities and surveys of information, this paper reveals five major problems of "construction of organizational culture, goals and risk management, budget control, accounting controls and audit controls" which exist in internal control on colleges and universities. And this paper analyses nine major reasons for problems as followed:1. The current management system is not perfect and the construction power is lacking; 2. Representative of ownership is not in place and external supervision is ineffective; 3. Accounting systems in colleges and universities is lagging, and supporting policies are incomplete; 4. Control objectives are not roundly understood and implementation is ineffective; 5. Modern management ideas are relatively lacking, and management level is not high; 6. Risk factors are not inadequately considered, and targeting is casual.7. Construction of organizational culture is relatively weak, and environment controlling is weakened.8. The concepts of accounting control are old and controlling function is held back.9. Strength of internal controls is weakened, and protection is not enough.Finally, the author believes, to enhance internal control construction in colleges and universities, one must be clear about the goals of internal control. The goals of internal control are the reasons why colleges and universities carry out internal control construction, and are the starting points and belongings for internal control construction. As a consequence, in terms of the main causes of problems which may occur in internal control, the "four goals" oriented and the internal control goals based on the correlation, the author puts forward effective strategies of improving internal control construction in colleges and universities, i.e. optimizing colleges and universities’governance structure, specifying the principles internal control construction, improving the internal control system, and strengthening the implementation of internal control. With a view to healthy and sustainable development of colleges and universities, it can provide reasonable assurance. |
