Top Management Turnover: The Role of Governing Board Structures

AuthorJon Lozano,Amanda Rutherford
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12838
Published date01 January 2018
Date01 January 2018
104 Public Administration Review • January | February 2018
Public Administration Review,
Vol. 78, Iss. 1, pp. 104–115. © 2017 by
The American Society for Public Administration.
DOI: 10.1111/puar.12838.
Jon Lozano is a doctoral student in the
School of Education at Indiana University,
Bloomington. His research is centered on
issues of higher education governance,
student activism and involvement, and the
history of higher education.
E-mail: jonlozan@indiana.edu
Amanda Rutherford is assistant
professor in the School of Public and
Environmental Affairs at Indiana University,
Bloomington. Her research focuses on
performance accountability systems,
executive profiles and decision-making
processes, and representative bureaucracy.
E-mail: aruther@indiana.edu
Abstract : The convergence of performance accountability policies, a graying bureaucracy, and shorter executive tenures
highlights the timeliness of investigating executive turnover. Prior public administration research has examined pull
and push factors linked to these departures, but it has yet to fully explore the influence of governing board structures
and political pressures that stem from such structures. Using data on 123 public four-year research universities in the
United States from 1993 to 2012, this article finds that governing board structures play a pivotal role in predicting
the departure decisions of university presidents. While the size of the board increases the risk of departure, boards
overseeing multiple institutions and boards with a faculty or student representative lower the risk of departure.
Additional evidence suggests that both the share of gubernatorial and legislative appointees on the board and the party
division of the legislature have a direct influence on departure.
Evidence for Practice
Executive turnover in public and nonprofit organizations may be partially explained by governing board
structures and politics.
In U.S. higher education, larger governing boards increase the likelihood of executive departure, while boards
overseeing multiple institutions lower the likelihood of departure.
The presence of either a faculty representative or student representative on the governing board vastly
decreases the likelihood of executive departure.
Governing board characteristics explain little regarding where executives go after leaving their position.
Amanda Rutherford
Jon Lozano
Indiana University, Bloomington
Top Management Turnover:
The Role of Governing Board Structures
U nderstanding why executives leave their
posts is becoming increasingly important for
modern public organizations, where evolving
accountability policies and increasing political
polarization place heavy responsibilities on top-level
managers. Executive departures often differ from
turnover in lower-level positions given the salience of
and political pressure on executives (for recent work
on employee turnover, see, e.g., Grissom, Viano,
and Selin 2016 ). Public administration scholars
have occasionally examined what underlying factors
increase executive turnover risk, with a focus on push
and pull factors that either force a manager to leave
or attract him or her to a different position. While
this work recognizes the potential influence of politics
on managerial tenure—particularly in the case of city
managers—it stops short of fully considering the role
of governing board structures in departure decisions.
Given increased polarization and far-reaching
accountability policies, understanding the durability
of executive roles is quite pressing for the public sector.
Research on corporate governance and private firms
provides a wealth of literature on linkages between
board governance and executive turnover, executive
compensation, and various forms of firm performance
(see, e.g., Daily, Dalton, and Canella 2003 ; Gillan
2006 ). While some of these linkages can be detected
in research on board composition and power by
nonprofit scholars (e.g., O Regan and Oster 2005 ),
discussions of how board structures and politics can
influence executive tenure have less commonly been
extended to public and nonprofit organizations.
Yet governing boards of public organizations vary
dramatically in size, oversight responsibilities, member
composition, and member selection. Given that
members of governing boards often interact directly
with agency executives in strategic planning and
decision-making processes, it should be expected that
variance in board characteristics influences executive
tenure. The goal of this article is to consider when
and how such variance is meaningful for predicting
executive turnover.
This article focuses on public research institutions
of higher education in the United States, where
governing board structures vary and departure
information is available. Top-level managers of these

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