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Do university administrators receive significantly higher remuneration than faculty members? Can the adoption of New Public Management (NPM) principles in higher education governance contribute to a more equitable allocation of resources? This study aims to address these questions by examining a sample of Russian public universities from 2018–2021. The analysis focuses on the salary gap between university administrators, specifically rectors and vice-rectors, and faculty members. The study explores both institutional and leader-related factors that contribute to this salary gap. While NPM proposes the implementation of incentive contracts and control mechanisms to enhance organisational performance, the findings indicate that the salary gap is more pronounced in research-oriented universities. These results suggest that top-level managers are rewarded for the exceptional performance of faculty members, which contributes to an increasing income disparity that may adversely affect perceptions of fairness within higher education organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do a university leader's publication patterns change after appointment? Until now, few studies have examined whether administrative burden has a significant effect on a leader's publication patterns. This study seeks to evaluate changes in individual publication patterns in relation to academic productivity and increased administrative load. The main expectation is that rectors opt for collaboration instead of publishing single‐authored papers. The analysis of publication data on Russian rectors demonstrates that: (1) a rector's academic productivity is significantly positively related to the share of single‐authored papers and papers in inter‐organizational co‐authorship; (2) every additional year in office adds to the share of co‐authored papers and impedes a yearly increase in article numbers; and (3) previously high individual productivity has a mitigating effect on an increasing share of institutionally co‐authored papers. The results suggest that administrative burden induces changes in collaboration patterns of university leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, university sectors worldwide have undergone intense reforms under the influence of the global ideas of 'new public management' and 'new managerialism'. National policies have widely adopted global scripts with advocacy for strengthening academic leadership as the essential ingredient of successful university transformation. However, how direct is the link between the policy reforms and the changes in the composition of academic leaders? To provide insight into this question, we examined national policy changes in the formal procedure of rector selection from the election to the appointment and the consequences of these changes. We tested the specific hypothesis that the policy reform on the selection procedure has catalysed significant changes in rector leadership towards increasing (1) rector replacement in universities with weak performance, (2) external recruitment, (3) recruitment from the natural and life sciences and diminishing (4) academic credentials. The hypotheses were tested using data on the 136 rector replacements that have occurred in Russian public universities. The data show that, in general, strong support does not emerge from the top-management level to claim that a 'traditional' academic career pathway has been reduced in favour of a new type of leader more suited to strong leadership. We concluded that the national policy tends to adopt those elements of global ideas that provide local benefits. The leadership change not only enables the state to symbolically exhibit proper behaviour but also to strengthen control over public universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies that have examined organizations' productivity and their leaders have found a rather weak relationship between a leader's personal characteristics and organizational output. Similar empirical studies have also been conducted in relation to universities. These studies have concentrated on university leaders' individual academic performance as a quantifiable individual characteristic. They have yielded rather contradictory results. In this study, I take a theoretical approach to quantify the effects of top leadership on university research performance. I assume that top leaders may influence university research productivity, but this influence should be visible. I theorize two types of university leader: the "strategic manager" who seeks to reallocate resources to make it of use for the whole university and the "politician" who reallocates resources to benefit certain research areas, especially the one they specialize in. It is hypothesized that (1) if a leader is a strategic manager, an increase in overall university research productivity would be observed; and (2) if a leader is a politician, there will be an increase in university performance in the research field in which the leader specializes. Using an extensive sample of Russian universities, it is demonstrated that while there is no observable relationship between overall university research productivity and the university leader's academic excellence, there is a positive influence by university leader's academic productivity on the research performance of his/her specific research field. This study finds evidence that leaders qua "politicians" can have a profound effect on their respective research areas' productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modernization reforms in Russian universities over the past 20 years have, among other things, led to the replacement of university leader elections with direct appointment. Although over half of the public universities in Russia still elect their academic leaders, the competitiveness of these elections is debatable. Using a sample of Russian universities, this paper shows that the remaining elections are not competitive and that the government engages in differential policy toward universities, being more likely to appoint rectors at leading institutions in order to increase its control over these institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]