Financial sustainability in Malaysian public universities: coping with or embracing change?

Purpose - This paper explores the institutionalisation of a financial sustainability agenda in Malaysian public universities. Design/methodology/approach - The study uses semi-structured interviews and document analysis. New Institutional Sociology and the institutional logics perspective are utilised to frame the study and explain findings. Findings - The findings reveal that universities manage the conflicting academic and financial logics to co-exist to ensure legitimacy and survival. By compartmentalising the functions of key divisions and through loose coupling, universities are able to support dual logics. Research limitations/implications - The paper provides university management and policy makers with insights into how leading universities in Malaysia cope with a financial sustainability agenda. Originality/value - The present study documents how universities cope with and respond to government reforms and budgetary cuts in the context of a developing country, Malaysia. Most prior research in the area focuses on individual or organisational responses. This paper examines organisational-level responses but goes deeper to understand how universities, through three key divisions; bursaries, corporate strategy divisions and faculties manage to enable the multiple logics to co-exist through compartmentalisation and loose coupling.