An assessment of the role of stakeholder theory in shaping Zimbabwe’s public entities through the public entities corporate governance act [chapter 10:31].

Abstract

Public entities are an important player in the economic recovery process in Zimbabwe. They were created for specific purposes which usually revolve around public welfare. However, between 2014 and 2018 local media wrote a lot of stories which pointed to public entities’ signs of struggling in respect of corporate governance. In 2018 an Act was gazetted, namely the Public Entities Corporate Governance Act [Chapter 10:31]. On the background of corporate governance challenges that were being encountered by the public entities, it was expected that the Act would bring solutions in the public sector. It became an interest to the researcher to look at the impact, if any, that had been brought by the Act to the public entities’ corporate governance landscape in Zimbabwe. The research targeted to gauge the entities’ level of compliance with the Act in relation to their corporate governance challenges. Those that were in compliance were deemed to be experiencing less corporate governance challenges. The reverse was true to the non-compliant ones. The aforegoing is aptly epitomized by the research aim which is to assess the role of the stakeholder theory in inspiring the Act to shape Zimbabwean public entities’ corporate governance landscape. The research, which was qualitative in nature, was carried out through the use of face-to-face interviews which were guided by a semi-structured questionnaire. One of the main findings of the research was to the effect that the public entities were failing to deliver their mandates because communication lines between them and their key stakeholders were not open. The research findings subsequently formed the bedrock from which policy recommendations were built. Overall, the research objectives were to a greater extent achieved. Answers to the research questions were found. In addition, the fact that this research was the first of its kind since the Act was promulgated on 8 June 2018 spiced up the hard work that was done by the researcher. A drawback was however inevitable in the fact that the Act was new - no textbook or journal writers had yet committed themselves to the Act at the time when the researcher hereof did this research. That means there were shortcomings in respect of the available literature.