Managing core university business performance in the wake of ‘fees must fall’ context : a legitimacy theoretical perspective

Abstract

This paper uses the legitimacy theory as a lens to identify the most sustainable performance model to defend and main-tain the legitimacy of higher education institutions in the midst of ‘fees must fall’ crisis. The body of evidence pre-sented demonstrates that universities have at least seven critical stakeholders that control resources needed for survival, growth and legitimacy. Using this evidence, this study builds a model that looks at the impact of fee income and work-load on success. The model was tested using annual time series panel data for the period 2009-2013 across 23 public universities in South Africa. The model examined the effect of fee income and workload on success rate. Basing the arguments on the notion that students are a critical constituency, with a strong influence on the amount of fee income an institution may amass, the model tested the relationship between performance and fee income using success rate as a proxy for performance. The findings showed that not only is fee income a stronger predictor of success rate, but also that fee income is negatively related to success rate of students. Policy implications of the findings are discussed.