Implementation of Financial Resource Mobilisation Programmes to Increase Financial Sustainability in Zimbabwe’s Public Universities: A Panacea or a Pipe Dream?

Abstract

The study sought to examine how innovative financial resource mobilisation projects/programmes enhanced the financial sustainability of the public universities of Zimbabwe. A combination of correlation and survey research design informed by the positivist research philosophy were employed in the study. The unit of analysis was confined to six public universities in Zimbabwe from which a sample of 229 respondents were selected through systematic random sampling from an accessible population of 1 450 employees in the respective revenue generating units and participated in the Rensis Likert scale questionnaire survey. Quantitative data were validated using tests for normality, kurtosis and skewness, homoscedasticity, multicollinearity, and prior power of the entire model of the study. The test results fell within acceptable values for correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis. Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics, and inferential statistics. The 
Overall regression results showed that right-tailed, was F (3,164) = 12.7208, p-value = 0.000. Since p-value < α (0.05), H0 (the null hypothesis): Innovative financial resource mobilisation has no significant effect on the financial sustainability of Zimbabwe’s public universities, was rejected and the alternate hypothesis accepted. It was deduced that innovative financial resource mobilisation enhanced the financial sustainability of the public universities of Zimbabwe. Therefore, the more the public universities implemented innovative financial resource mobilisation programmes, the more the financial sustainability. It was recommended that lucrative financial resource mobilisation strategies like 'grant-winning' research and 
extension, provision of consultancy and advisory services, sale of merchandise in strategic business units, bond issues financing, endowment financing, and foundations be implemented to maintain the financial sustainability of the public universities of Zimbabwe.