Exploring PDM in Higher Education: Management Strategies, Learning Dynamics, and Adaptive Governance for Institutional Sustainability

Participatory decision-making (PDM) is increasingly recognized as a critical governance mechanism for enhancing institutional sustainability in higher education. However, the internal pathways through which participation contributes to organizational learning and adaptive governance remain insufficiently understood and empirically tested. Drawing on collaborative governance and organizational learning theories, this study develops a feedback-based governance framework that links PDM, learning feedback (LF), and adaptive governance capacity within universities. This study adopts a quantitative research design and employs covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM) to examine the proposed framework. The analytical strategy integrates confirmatory factor analysis, mediation analysis, moderation analysis, and multi-group comparisons to capture both internal transmission mechanisms and contextual heterogeneity. As an empirical illustration, questionnaire data were collected from 512 respondents across 32 universities in China, encompassing both research-oriented and practice-oriented institutions. The survey instruments measured respondents’ perceptions of PDM, LF, adaptive governance capacity (AGC), managerial support, and digital collaboration tools using established multi-item scales. The results show that PDM enhances adaptive governance primarily through LF, indicating that participation contributes to sustainability by operating as a perceived learning mechanism rather than a one-off procedural input. Overall, the findings suggest interpreting participatory governance as a perception-based, feedback-oriented decision–learning–adaptation process, highlighting the role of learning in adaptive university governance.