Purpose – This study aims to explore the relationships between strategic improvisation, organizational culture and higher education institutions (HEIs) performance. The dynamic nature of today’s environment, increased population and demand and budget cuts have created a lot of pressure on HEIs around the world. Hence, the need for effective human resource capable of providing advanced policies for efficiency and sustainability of these institutions. Design/methodology/approach – A total of 229 questionnaires were filled and returned by academic leaders from HEIs in Kano state, Nigeria. The study used partial least squares path modelling to test the hypotheses postulated. Findings – The major findings indicate that both strategic improvisation and organizational culture dimensions have direct relationship with HEIs performance. However, only innovative culture moderates the relationship between strategic improvisation and HEIs, while bureaucratic culture and supportive culture fail to support the proposed hypothesis. Research limitations/implications – More studies are needed to further validate the impact of strategic improvisation (SI) on other public sector performance. Also, future studies should use longitudinal approach to establish at which stage SI has more impact on performance. Also, future studies should identify the difference that exists between units, department and faculty leaders, as some are more likely to engage in SI due to the nature of their specialization. Practical implications – It is obvious that HEIs performance is not only limited to organizational factors but also individual characteristics such as ability to improvise. Hence, HEIs should consider SI ability during employment to ensure efficiency, performance and sustainability. Moreover, organizational culture of HEIs needs to be updated and to be more flexible in accommodating new initiatives or failure to encourage display of such ability. Originality/value – Previous studies especially in the for profit sector have demonstrated the role of SI and organizational culture on performance. Thus, the present study is one of the early studies in the non-profit sector, specifically the HEIs. Moreover, the inconsistent result of the previous findings necessitates the study to test the moderating effect of organizational culture.

Introduction

Higher education institutions (HEIs) have been linked with economic prosperity and development that is achieved in a particular country (Chapman and Sarvi, 2017). This is made possible by transforming economic structure through the provision of educated workforce, highly skilled labour that are technologically competent and capable of competing not only locally but also globally (Banya, 2015). Knowledge economy, globalization and rapid technological change have been identified as the major factors forcing the need for change in an organization such HEIs (de Boer et al., 2017; Kiran et al., 2013). For organizations to achieve their objectives, they need to constantly learn, respond and adapt to fast changing environment of today’s world (Owen and Dietz, 2012). HEIs are not left out as they do not operate in a vacuum. HEIs face serious pressure by the changes and competitive nature of the new environment (Collis, 2002; Mullin, 2001). Hence, the need for them to provide enhanced academic programmes in line with the current needs of students, labour market and the economy at large (Al Zameli et al., 2015). Continuous shrinking of funds almost on yearly basis, coupled with obsolete facilities, understaffing, technological change and higher public expectations are the major challenges of HEIs around the world (Chapman and Sarvi, 2017; Nayyar and Mahmood, 2014). Additionally, transforming the educational sector is one of the key issues facing developing countries like Nigeria (Banya, 2015). In Nigeria, the case is even worse, as HEIs failure has also been attributed to poor quality of leadership and governance, and prioritization of resource allocation (Dike, 2014). Specifically, academic leaders are seriously lacking in entrepreneurial skills to be progressive to attract funds that will contribute to performance of these institutions. For instance, Nkamnebe (2009) posits that Nigerian HEIs lack innovative leaders that have the ability to scan the environment to make tactical decisions. Consequently, HEIs fail to integrate the rapid changes that occur in the environment and the needs of the society. The Nigerian HEIs are in a sorry state, as a result of many or all of the aforementioned problems (Emmanuel, 2015); thus, the conclusion that the country’s HEIs is the worst within the West African sub-region (Apekhade, 2015). As a result of this, HEIs relevance in Nigeria has been seriously questioned in providing the required work force needed by the country. This is evidenced from the clear mismatch between societal needs and graduates produced by these institutions. Thus, there is an increased concern on HEIs (Zajda, 2013), with a lot of calls on them to adopt entrepreneurship as a panacea to their numerous problems (Gibb and Hannon, 2006).