Abstract
While the extant literature related to firm financial performance and chief officer turnover is extensive in the for-profit literature, less is known about this relationship in the nonprofit setting, particularly universities. Further, the moderating role of corporate governance on performance – turnover sensitivity has not been studied in the past for higher education institutions. This dissertation bridges this gap in the literature by studying the relationship between multiple facets of university performance and presidential turnover at private, nonprofit universities in the U.S.
I perform multiple analyses of the sample, including univariate, quintile, and regression analyses. In addition to the main tests of turnover versus nonturnover, I determine the nature of turnover (forced or nonforced) and analyze forced turnover events versus all other events. Throughout the results, I find a negative relationship between university performance and presidential turnover, which is congruent with studies in the corporate setting. In analyzing the impact of board size and board independence on the performance – turnover relationship, I find these measures of board composition do appear to moderate the relationship. As in the corporate setting, smaller boards appear to be better monitors of the president as shown by a higher likelihood of turnover for lower performing institutions.