The RADIANT Model: Transformational Stewardship, Institutional Resilience, and Development Outcomes in Higher Education under Governance Rigidity

Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) in developing contexts experience persistent institutional fragility despite ambitious national development agendas. In Kenya, efforts such as Vision 2030, the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA), and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are still far from being achieved. to financial distress, governance inefficiencies and limited adaptive capacity. While transformational leadership has been widely linked to the performance of institutions, existing studies largely treat leadership and resilience as isolated constructs and under-theorize the conditions under which leadership translates into sustained development outcomes. This study proposes the RADIANT Model (Resilience-Adaptive Development through Integrated Administrative Navigation and Transformational Stewardship) as an integrative framework linking transformational stewardship, institutional resilience, and development outcomes, while factoring in governance rigidity as a moderating structural condition. Drawing on transformational leadership theory, stewardship theory, Duchek’s resilience framework, and institutional theory, the model conceptualizes leadership as being ethically grounded and institutionally embedded. It positions resilience as a dynamic mediating capability and governance rigidity as a constraint that shapes leadership effectiveness. Evidence from higher education research demonstrates that leadership enhances resilience capacities, such as adaptability, robustness, and recovery, which, in turn, influence institutional performance. However, governance rigidity, which is mostly observed through bureaucratic constraints, regulatory pressures, and institutionalized routines, conditions this relationship negatively. The RADIANT model advances a context-sensitive theoretical framework for understanding leadership-driven institutional transformation in African higher education and provides a foundation for empirical testing and policy reform.