Political Capital Imbalance Between University Leaders and University Academic Publications: Evidence from Elite Universities in China

Liu, Bin1; Qian, Gongming2; Shen, Yuting3; Shen, Chen1

2023-11-01

10.1057/s41307-023-00330-3

HIGHER EDUCATION POLICY   影响因子和分区

0952-8733

1740-3863

Leadership is a critical determinant of university performance. While much attention has been given to the personal traits of university leaders, the differences in leaders' political capital are largely neglected. Grounded in the framework of power relations in the management domain and contextualised in Chinese elite universities, the study has hypothesised and corroborated that the political capital imbalance between the party secretary and the president, the two top university leaders, adversely impacts the university's innovation performance, which is reflected by academic publications. However, this adverse effect would be attenuated if the president would be recruited externally. The study provides a new explanation of why political capital may not facilitate university innovation as expected while challenging the generalizability of shared governance logic as developed in US institutions of higher learning. The findings further enrich the university leadership literature by unveiling the impacts of cooperation and governance arrangements and underscoring the benefits of recruiting outsiders to enhance university innovation.

Political capital imbalance University leaders University innovation External recruitment Power relations China

SSCI

英语

其他

The earlier version of this work has received valuable comments from Ahmadjian Christina. The work described was partially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (72102199) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universit[72102199] ; National Natural Science Foundation of China[2072021126]

Education & Educational Research

Education & Educational Research

WOS:001101108400001

PALGRAVE MACMILLAN LTD

Web of Science

1.Xiamen Univ, Sch Management, Dept Business Management, Xiamen, Peoples R China
2.Southern Univ Sci & Technol, Dept Informat Syst & Management Engn, Shenzhen, Peoples R China
3.Univ Hong Kong, Fac Educ, Hong Kong, Peoples R China

Liu, Bin,Qian, Gongming,Shen, Yuting,et al. Political Capital Imbalance Between University Leaders and University Academic Publications: Evidence from Elite Universities in China[J]. HIGHER EDUCATION POLICY,2023.

Liu, Bin,Qian, Gongming,Shen, Yuting,&Shen, Chen.(2023).Political Capital Imbalance Between University Leaders and University Academic Publications: Evidence from Elite Universities in China.HIGHER EDUCATION POLICY.

Liu, Bin,et al."Political Capital Imbalance Between University Leaders and University Academic Publications: Evidence from Elite Universities in China".HIGHER EDUCATION POLICY (2023).