Paying the piper: the governance of vice-chancellors’ remuneration in Australian and UK universities

Abstract

There is a long-running cyclical public debate in the UK and Australia about the level of vice-chancellors' remuneration in publicly funded universities. Whilst governments may promise greater oversight, little appears to change. Similar trends are emerging in some other European countries. This article critically considers the determination of vice-chancellors' remuneration as a governance issue. In the context of corporatised public universities, we consider how reforms in university governance may have contributed to the shifting nature and levels of vicechancellors' remuneration in Australia and the UK. We argue that this area requires urgent governance reform.

‘This can’t be the new norm’: academics’ perspectives on the COVID-19 crisis for the Australian university sector

“…Such practices, endemic to higher education as a 'prestige economy' (Blackmore & Kandiko, 2011) and which focus upon the acquisition, even monopolisation of positional goods, have fostered labour-based changes in Australian universities (Meyers, 2012). Alongside wider concerns of governance in the sector (Lokuwaduge & Armstrong, 2015) are questions of how Australian universities can justify vice-chancellor salaries which averaged A $1 million in 2019 (Boden & Rowlands, 2020).…”

Vice-Chancellor Pay and Performance: The Moderating Effect of Vice-Chancellor Characteristics

“…annual national/international research/teaching rankings) and long-term (e.g. addressing key long-term societal challenges/inequalities) performance targets (Ballo, 2020; Dowsett, 2020), arguably and similar to large public corporations, the successful management of such complex institutions requires equally highly talented and experienced senior management teams, who will need to be sufficiently remunerated if they are to perform at their best (Boden and Rowlands, 2020). However, and due to the increasing competition and financialisation/marketisation in the UK HE sector, it has been argued that VCs are more likely to focus on meeting short-term performance targets, since such targets are less costly and quicker to achieve, in order to justify their often relatively high pay (Walker et al, 2019).…”

“… 1. Despite these controversies/debates and unlike discussions about executive pay in public corporations, VC pay in HEIs is often discussed separately from performance (Boden and Rowlands, 2020). This is mainly due to the difficulty in measuring performance, as unlike public corporations, HEIs are expected to fulfil multiple and mostly conflicting missions, often with high levels of heterogeneity in terms of stakeholders, inputs and outputs that are not easily observable by the general public (Dowsett, 2020).…”

Vice-Chancellor Pay and Performance: The Moderating Effect of Vice-Chancellor Characteristics

“…Additionally, the increasing financialisation/marketisation of the HE sector has resulted in shifting the focus of HEIs from delivering on their original long-term social transformation and civic responsibilities mandate (Hurt, 2012) (e.g., reducing gender pay/disability/gender/age/BAME employment gap/student dropout rate and widening access and participation for students from poor and disadvantaged backgrounds) towards pursuing short-term reputational performance targets in order to generate income (Taberner, 2018) (e.g., enhancing national/international reputation) (Geiger, 2004). The financialisation/marketisation of HE sector has, therefore, appeared to have encouraged VCs to inherently focus on achieving short-term observable (metric driven) performance targets (Walker et al, 2019), and this, arguably and similar to large public corporations, the successful management of such complex institutions require equally highly talented and experienced senior management teams, who will need to be sufficiently remunerated if they are to perform at their best (Boden and Rowlands, 2020). However, and due to the increasing competition and financialisation/marketisation in the UK HE sector, it has been argued that VCs are more likely to focus on meeting short-term performance targets, since such targets are less costly and quicker to achieve, in order to justify their often relatively high pay (Walker et al, 2019).…”