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The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to elicit perceptions of senior officers on the overall financial sustainability of their institutions; and, second, to examine senior officers’ perceptions on important revenue diversification and cost management practices.

The study employed a questionnaire survey with senior academic and administrative staff of the 20 public universities in Malaysia. In total, 275 questionnaires were distributed and 69 were returned, yielding a response rate of 25.09 per cent. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the general perceptions of the survey respondents on public university financial sustainability issues.

The study suggests that respondents are receptive of the financial sustainability challenges faced by their institutions. Respondents agree that increasing tuition fees may not be a feasible revenue enhancement strategy for public universities. Instead, all respondents agree that full utilisation of resources will be a key strategy that the universities can apply.

This study contributes to the limited research on the financial sustainability of public universities in developing countries. Findings of the study have implications for the financial management and governance of public universities in Malaysia and other countries facing similar fiscal challenges. The findings of the study also provide important empirical evidence for future work in the area.

The purpose of this paper is to examine factors influencing the readiness of public sector accountants to implement the accrual accounting system in the Malaysian Federal Government. The readiness was measured in terms change commitment and change efficacy.

The study uses a questionnaire survey that comprises three factors (change valence, task knowledge and task availability) in predicting readiness to implement the accrual accounting system. Multiple regressions were performed on a total of 165 usable responses received.

The results reveal that change valence, task knowledge and task availability are significant and positively influence the change efficacy of the Federal Government to implement accrual accounting in Malaysia. However, only change valance is a positively significant factor in influencing change commitment.

This study is important as it contributes not only by adding to the scant literature assessing the readiness to implement the accrual accounting system but also by providing useful information on determinants of readiness for accrual accounting implementation in supporting the Malaysian Government’s financial transformation agenda.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent of revenue diversification of selected Malaysian public higher learning institutions (HLIs) and the perceptions of senior officers of Malaysian public HLIs on matters related to revenue diversification.

The study analyses data from the HLIs’ financial statements to compute the Hirschman-Herfindahl Index (HHI) for revenue diversification and a perception survey with senior officers of the Malaysian public HLIs.

The results suggest that while a majority of the Malaysian public HLIs were still dependent largely on government funding, the more established and larger HLIs had a slightly more diversified revenue structure. The survey suggested that overall the senior officers were receptive to the need for revenue diversification.

The paper is largely based on a perception survey. Future work should utilise in-depth interviews and/or focus groups and a more in-depth analysis of financial statement data to provide richer data.

The study’s findings provide useful baseline data upon which further work may be built, particularly in the less explored developing country context. They will also prove useful to the administrators of public HLIs in other parts of the world facing a similar financial austerity situation.

The present study examines both the extent of revenue diversification of HLIs as well as senior HLI officers’ perceptions on revenue diversification strategies. Most prior studies on revenue diversification have examined non-profit organisations, not HLIs and most were either only perception-based studies or only looked at the extent of revenue diversification using the HHI.