Despite recent evidence linking top management power with firm performance, our understanding about the interaction effect between power and personal characteristics of the top manager is still very limited. Building on and extending the Upper Echelons and Power literature, we address the empirical question: How, i.e. UK Vice-Chancellors' (VC)…

Between 2019 and 2022, 21 Hungarian public institutions were placed under the control of so-called public interest foundations (trust funds) instead of the state. As a result, the board of each foundation gained considerable power and authority over the institutions and thus paving the way for radical changes in the university management and…

While the effects of new managerialism and the internationalization of higher education on university structures and functions have been widely examined, their impact on university leadership has been less investigated, although both phenomena suggest the need for different and more powerful leaders. This article aims to examine if the core…

Higher education's focus is shifting to include societal impact alongside academic excellence. While community-engaged scholarship has a long history, many initiatives focus on individual researchers or institutional practices, without accounting for disciplinary and geopolitical contexts. The Community Engagement for Impact (CEFI) Framework and…

The Finnish financial autonomy reform pushed university leaders and academics to a juncture where they must navigate through increasing competition dynamics. Enabling the two types of organisational players -- foundation-run universities and universities under public law -- to become more autonomous and competitive was the major element of…

The purpose of this study is to explore Chinese faculty' participation in university governance arrangements based on solid empirical data. This study found that the Chinese faculty's participation in university governance was primarily concerned with faculty's participation in academic committees and professors' meetings at both departmental and…

International student services centers (ISSC) at postsecondary institutions in the United States are central to supporting international students' transition and adjustment needs. As leaders of these units, ISSC directors are 'managerial professionals' (MPs), exhibiting characteristics of both traditional academic and administrative roles. These…

This paper argues that university strategic positioning is influenced by the organisational dimension, operationalised along the variables of organisational structure, identity and centrality. A comparative case study is presented including two English and two Italian universities and drawing on a set of sixty interviews with academic leaders,…

Boards in higher education organizations (HEOs) play multiple roles. While they govern, boards are also expected to embed HEOs in society. Indeed, recent higher education reforms in Europe have emphasized the embedding role of HEO boards more than their governing role. But, although these reforms are widespread, we still know little about the ways…

Autonomy in governance is an inevitable trend in universities. With this, the involvement of faculty members is essential. The landscape of the Vietnamese higher education system comprises a wide variety of institutional types, including National, Regional, Public, Non-public, and International Universities. This investigation aimed to understand…

How can we better support the professional development of the professoriate? This paper reports on the proposal to introduce an integrated higher doctorate to develop and recognise expert leadership in universities. The contemporary professoriate in the United Kingdom is challenged by a multitude of pressures as a consequence of neo-liberalism and…

Strategic agility is seen as a crucial necessity for organizations to achieve superior organizational performance. However, it is uncommon to find a research framework that explains the relationship of strategic agility with its antecedents and organizational performance, especially in the private higher education sector of Malaysia. As such, it…

There is an increasing reliance on international education agents for student recruitment in Higher Education (HE), but the governance of education agents is under-researched. This study explores contractual governance approaches adopted by HE institutions for managing international education agents in the United States, United Kingdom and…

This study examined the communication styles of rectors and vice-rectors of German public universities during the COVID-19 pandemic to explore the influence of gender on leadership communication. We collected data from social media and university websites; and analysed the language used to identify transformational, transactional, and servant…

Several studies in higher education have attempted to study the impact of quality management practices on organisational innovation processes and outcomes in higher education institutions (HEIs). However, there is relatively limited research examining the impact of multidimensional quality management practices (QM-practices) on academics'…