Chief executive pay in UK higher education: the role of university performance
Jill Johnes, Swati Virmani
Huddersfield Business School
Northern Productivity Hub
Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics
Remuneration for chief executives in UK higher education—known as Vice Chancellors (VCs)—has been on an upward trend in recent years, and VCs have received criticism that their performance does not warrant such reward. We investigate the relationship between VC pay and performance (rooted in principal agent theory), taking into account an array of other possible determinants. Deriving measures of VC performance is difficult as VCs are agents for various principals, and each principal may be interested in a different aspect of performance. We consider three measures of VC performance here: managerial efficiency as measured by data envelopment analysis; performance in university rankings produced by the media; the financial stability of the university. We construct a comprehensive data set, covering academic years 2009/2010 to 2016/2017, a period of considerable change in the UK higher education sector including rapidly-rising undergraduate tuition fees. Our results show that, once other possible determinants of VC pay are taken into account, the main measure of performance which affects VC pay is the one based on media rankings. Thus the agents (VCs) appear to be rewarded for delivering against this performance benchmark which is likely to be of interest to a variety of principals. This result however varies by type of university suggesting that the labour market for VCs differs by mission group.
Annals of Operations Research
E-pub ahead of print - 24 May 2019
Principal-agent theory
Data envelopment analysis
Managerial efficiency
Johnes, J., & Virmani, S. (2019). Chief executive pay in UK higher education: the role of university performance. Annals of Operations Research. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-019-03275-2
Johnes, Jill ; Virmani, Swati. / Chief executive pay in UK higher education : the role of university performance. In: Annals of Operations Research. 2019.
@article{2ef1bbe9fdb34c58a8130903802da73c,
title = "Chief executive pay in UK higher education: the role of university performance",
abstract = "Remuneration for chief executives in UK higher education—known as Vice Chancellors (VCs)—has been on an upward trend in recent years, and VCs have received criticism that their performance does not warrant such reward. We investigate the relationship between VC pay and performance (rooted in principal agent theory), taking into account an array of other possible determinants. Deriving measures of VC performance is difficult as VCs are agents for various principals, and each principal may be interested in a different aspect of performance. We consider three measures of VC performance here: managerial efficiency as measured by data envelopment analysis; performance in university rankings produced by the media; the financial stability of the university. We construct a comprehensive data set, covering academic years 2009/2010 to 2016/2017, a period of considerable change in the UK higher education sector including rapidly-rising undergraduate tuition fees. Our results show that, once other possible determinants of VC pay are taken into account, the main measure of performance which affects VC pay is the one based on media rankings. Thus the agents (VCs) appear to be rewarded for delivering against this performance benchmark which is likely to be of interest to a variety of principals. This result however varies by type of university suggesting that the labour market for VCs differs by mission group.",
keywords = "Efficiency, Performance, Executive Pay, Higher Education",
author = "Jill Johnes and Swati Virmani",
doi = "10.1007/s10479-019-03275-2",
journal = "Annals of Operations Research",
Johnes, J & Virmani, S 2019, 'Chief executive pay in UK higher education: the role of university performance', Annals of Operations Research. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-019-03275-2
Chief executive pay in UK higher education : the role of university performance. / Johnes, Jill; Virmani, Swati.
In: Annals of Operations Research, 24.05.2019.
T1 - Chief executive pay in UK higher education
T2 - the role of university performance
AU - Johnes, Jill
AU - Virmani, Swati
N2 - Remuneration for chief executives in UK higher education—known as Vice Chancellors (VCs)—has been on an upward trend in recent years, and VCs have received criticism that their performance does not warrant such reward. We investigate the relationship between VC pay and performance (rooted in principal agent theory), taking into account an array of other possible determinants. Deriving measures of VC performance is difficult as VCs are agents for various principals, and each principal may be interested in a different aspect of performance. We consider three measures of VC performance here: managerial efficiency as measured by data envelopment analysis; performance in university rankings produced by the media; the financial stability of the university. We construct a comprehensive data set, covering academic years 2009/2010 to 2016/2017, a period of considerable change in the UK higher education sector including rapidly-rising undergraduate tuition fees. Our results show that, once other possible determinants of VC pay are taken into account, the main measure of performance which affects VC pay is the one based on media rankings. Thus the agents (VCs) appear to be rewarded for delivering against this performance benchmark which is likely to be of interest to a variety of principals. This result however varies by type of university suggesting that the labour market for VCs differs by mission group.
AB - Remuneration for chief executives in UK higher education—known as Vice Chancellors (VCs)—has been on an upward trend in recent years, and VCs have received criticism that their performance does not warrant such reward. We investigate the relationship between VC pay and performance (rooted in principal agent theory), taking into account an array of other possible determinants. Deriving measures of VC performance is difficult as VCs are agents for various principals, and each principal may be interested in a different aspect of performance. We consider three measures of VC performance here: managerial efficiency as measured by data envelopment analysis; performance in university rankings produced by the media; the financial stability of the university. We construct a comprehensive data set, covering academic years 2009/2010 to 2016/2017, a period of considerable change in the UK higher education sector including rapidly-rising undergraduate tuition fees. Our results show that, once other possible determinants of VC pay are taken into account, the main measure of performance which affects VC pay is the one based on media rankings. Thus the agents (VCs) appear to be rewarded for delivering against this performance benchmark which is likely to be of interest to a variety of principals. This result however varies by type of university suggesting that the labour market for VCs differs by mission group.
KW - Efficiency
KW - Executive Pay
KW - Higher Education
U2 - 10.1007/s10479-019-03275-2
DO - 10.1007/s10479-019-03275-2
JO - Annals of Operations Research
JF - Annals of Operations Research
Johnes J, Virmani S. Chief executive pay in UK higher education: the role of university performance. Annals of Operations Research. 2019 May 24. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-019-03275-2
10.1007/s10479-019-03275-2Licence: CC BY
Johnes and Virmani revision April 2019 FINAL PUREAccepted author manuscript, 895 KBLicence: CC BY