Valuing universities’ heritage assets in light of the third mission of universities

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020. The chapter contributes to the current debate on universities’ heritage assets (UHA) value measurement by shedding light on the potential role that accounting, and reporting can play in this context. This study provides an in-depth discussion on the existing taxonomies of values for heritage assets and focuses on economic and monetary values. An original vision is used to critically observe the accounting for UHA in light of the third mission of universities. The chapter explores the measurement of such values, under an accrual accounting mandatory transition, recently adopted by Italian universities, demonstrating how values have been distorted to match the accounting practice. Several accounting behaviours are discussed in the light of Shapiro’s (Objectivity, relativism, and truth in external financial reporting: What’s really at stake in the disputes? Accounting, Organizations and Society, 22(2), 165-185, 1997) theory of social constructivism in financial reporting to offer a critique that can be useful to financial statement preparers to reflect on their decision

The role of cultural heritage in attracting skilled individuals

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role played by built heritages and cultural environments, alongside other locational factors, in explaining the growth of human capital in Sweden. We distinguish between urban, natural and cultural qualities as different sources of regional attractiveness and estimate their influence on the observed growth of individuals with at least three years of higher education during 2001–2010. Neighborhood-level data are used, and unobserved heterogeneity and spatial dependencies are modeled by employing random effects estimations and an instrumental variable approach. Our findings indicate that the local supply of built heritages and cultural environments explain a significant part of human capital growth in Sweden. Results suggest that these types of cultural heritages are important place-based resources with a potential to contribute to improved regional attractiveness and growth

Spatial Analysis of Cultural Heritage Landscapes in Rural China: Land Use Change and Its Risks for Conservation

Cultural heritage landscapes are consistently perceived as landscapes of high value. However, these landscapes are very vulnerable to change. In China, rapid land use change, especially urbanization, has become one of the main challenges for the conservation of cultural heritage landscapes in rural areas. This paper focuses on the designated cultural villages in rural China by systematically analyzing the spatial distribution of the designated cultural landscape across the country and assessing the threats these traditional landscapes are facing under current and future urbanization and other land use pressures. Current designated cultural heritage landscapes in China are predominantly located in the rural and peri-urban regions of Central and South China and less frequently found in other regions. Especially in these regions risks to land use change are large. These risks are assessed based on observed recent land use change and land use model simulations for scenarios up to 2050. The risk assessment reveals that especially in Southeast China along the sea coast and near the cities along the Yangtze River, high pressures are expected on cultural heritage landscapes due to urbanization. At the same time, in Southwest China, especially in Yunnan and Guizhou provinces, high pressures due to other land use changes are expected, including land abandonment. This assessment gives direction and guidance toward the selection of the most threatened cultural villages for detailed investigation and additional protection measures