Disclosure in Philantropic Institutions of Higher Education in Brazil

Several studies related to the capital market have investigated the voluntary and mandatory disclosures, their effects and also the reasons that lead the organization to do it or not. However, they are incipient the studies that investigate the disclosure in educational institutions. In this sense, the objective of this these is to make a comparative analysis, under the accountability theory approach, between the index of disclosure and the importance given by stakeholders to information considered relevant aiming at the accountability in Philanthropic Institutions of Higher Education of Brazil - PIHEB. The study is developed from the analysis of a population of 146 entities that are drawn up a cadastre in the National Council of Social Assistance - NCSA. The results reveal the existence of a gap between what the PIHEB account and the participants of the delphi technique consider important the PIHEB to account. The search also pointed that less than 33% of PIHEB prepare voluntary disclosure and that the majority only prepares mandatory disclosure, showing that are few, yet, the institutions that are concerned about public accountability beyond legal requirements.