#FeesMustFall# movement in the post-apartheid era: legitimacy battle for leaders

What is it about?

Underpinned by institutional legitimacy, this study explores how South African public university executives struggled to maintain legitimacy during an unplanned radical change process. Universities faced a national upheaval of a violent student protest, by far the biggest disruption since the end of Apartheid; and the government introduced a free higher education policy suddenly with the hope of stopping the student #FeesMustFall# movement. Our findings show that a radical change without proper planning can severely damage institutions in all aspects of normative, empirical, leadership, moral and pragmatic legitimacy. The study advances existing institutional legitimacy theories by illustrating how legitimacy can be ruined and create adverse effects during unplanned radical change. Contact: Prof Linda du Plessis (Linda.DuPlessis@nwu.ac.za) & Prof Hong T. M. Bui (Hong.Bui@bcu.ac.uk).

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