IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bri/cmpowp/13-308.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Herding cats? Management and university performance

Author

Listed:
  • John McCormack
  • Carol Propper
  • Sarah Smith

Abstract

Using a tried and tested measure of management practices which has been shown to predict firm performance, we survey nearly 250 departments across 100+ UK universities. We find large differences in management scores across universities and that departments in older, research-intensive universities score higher than departments in newer, more teaching-oriented universities. We also find that management matters in universities. The scores, particularly with respect to provision of incentives for staff recruitment, retention and promotion, are correlated with both teaching and research performance conditional on resources and past performance. Moreover, this relationship holds for all universities, not just research-intensive ones.

Suggested Citation

  • John McCormack & Carol Propper & Sarah Smith, 2013. "Herding cats? Management and university performance," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 13/308, The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK.
  • Handle: RePEc:bri:cmpowp:13/308
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/cmpo/publications/papers/2013/wp308.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Oriana Bandiera & Luigi Guiso & Andrea Prat & Raffaella Sadun, 2015. "Matching Firms, Managers, and Incentives," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(3), pages 623-681.
    2. Timothy Besley & Maitreesh Ghatak, 2005. "Competition and Incentives with Motivated Agents," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 616-636, June.
    3. Nicholas Bloom & John Van Reenen, 2007. "Measuring and Explaining Management Practices Across Firms and Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(4), pages 1351-1408.
    4. Jean Tirole & Roland Bénabou, 2006. "Incentives and Prosocial Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1652-1678, December.
    5. Josse Delfgaauw & Robert Dur & Carol Propper & Sarah Smith, 2011. "Management Practices: Are Not For Profits Different?," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 11-094/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    6. Lu, Wen-Min, 2012. "Intellectual capital and university performance in Taiwan," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 1081-1089.
    7. Marianne Bertrand & Antoinette Schoar, 2003. "Managing with Style: The Effect of Managers on Firm Policies," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(4), pages 1169-1208.
    8. Goodall, Amanda H., 2009. "Highly cited leaders and the performance of research universities," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(7), pages 1079-1092, September.
    9. Daron Acemoglu & Philippe Aghion & Fabrizio Zilibotti, 2006. "Distance to Frontier, Selection, and Economic Growth," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 4(1), pages 37-74, March.
    10. Nicholas Bloom & Carol Propper & Stephan Seiler & John Van Reenen, 2015. "The Impact of Competition on Management Quality: Evidence from Public Hospitals," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 82(2), pages 457-489.
    11. Sandra E. Black & Lisa M. Lynch, 2001. "How To Compete: The Impact Of Workplace Practices And Information Technology On Productivity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(3), pages 434-445, August.
    12. E Bayraktar & E Tatoglu & S Zaim, 2013. "Measuring the relative efficiency of quality management practices in Turkish public and private universities," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 64(12), pages 1810-1830, December.
    13. Amanda H Goodall, 2005. "Should Research Universities be Led by Top Researchers? Part 1: Are they?," HEW 0506003, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Casu, B. & Thanassoulis, E., 2006. "Evaluating cost efficiency in central administrative services in UK universities," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 417-426, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nicholas Bloom & Renata Lemos & Raffaella Sadun & John Van Reenen, 2020. "Healthy Business? Managerial Education and Management in Health Care," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(3), pages 506-517, July.
    2. Josse Delfgaauw & Robert Dur & Carol Propper & Sarah Smith, 2011. "Management Practices: Are Not For Profits Different?," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 11-094/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    3. Oriana Bandiera & Luigi Guiso & Andrea Prat & Raffaella Sadun, 2015. "Matching Firms, Managers, and Incentives," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(3), pages 623-681.
    4. Maloney, William F. & Sarrias, Mauricio, 2017. "Convergence to the managerial frontier," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 284-306.
    5. Catherine Buffington & Lucia Foster & Ron Jarmin & Scott Ohlmacher, 2016. "The Management and Organizational Practices Survey (MOPS): An Overview," Working Papers 16-28, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    6. Oriana Bandiera & Renata Lemos & Andrea Prat & Raffaella Sadun, 2018. "Managing the Family Firm: Evidence from CEOs at Work," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(5), pages 1605-1653.
    7. Stefan Bender & Nicholas Bloom & David Card & John Van Reenen & Stefanie Wolter, 2018. "Management Practices, Workforce Selection, and Productivity," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(S1), pages 371-409.
    8. Nicholas Bloom & Christos Genakos & Raffaella Sadun & John Van Reenen, 2011. "Management Practices Across Firms and Countries," CEP Discussion Papers dp1109, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    9. Mario BENASSI & Matteo LANDONI & Francesco RENTOCCHINI, 2017. "University Management Practices and Academic Spin-offs," Departmental Working Papers 2017-11, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    10. Najah Attig & Sean Cleary, 2014. "Organizational Capital and Investment-Cash Flow Sensitivity: The Effect of Management Quality Practices," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 43(3), pages 473-504, September.
    11. Bilicka, Katarzyna & Scur, Daniela, 2024. "Organizational capacity and profit shifting," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 238(C).
    12. Luca Flabbi & Mario Macis & Andrea Moro & Fabiano Schivardi, 2019. "Do Female Executives Make a Difference? The Impact of Female Leadership on Gender Gaps and Firm Performance," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(622), pages 2390-2423.
    13. Andrea Bassanini & Thomas Breda & Eve Caroli & Antoine Rebérioux, 2010. "Working in family firms: less paid but more secure? Evidence from French matched employer-employee data," Working Papers halshs-00564972, HAL.
    14. Michele Fioretti, 2022. "Caring or Pretending to Care? Social Impact, Firms' Objectives, and Welfare (former title: Social Responsibility and Firm's Objectives)," SciencePo Working papers hal-03393065, HAL.
    15. Byun, Seong, 2022. "The role of intrinsic incentives and corporate culture in motivating innovation," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    16. Nicholas Bloom & Renata Lemos & Raffaella Sadun & Daniela Scur & John Van Reenen, 2014. "The New Empirical Economics of Management," NBER Working Papers 20102, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Nicholas Bloom & John Van Reenen, 2010. "Why Do Management Practices Differ across Firms and Countries?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 24(1), pages 203-224, Winter.
    18. Nicholas Bloom & Christos Genakos & Ralf Martin & Raffaella Sadun, 2010. "Modern Management: Good for the Environment or Just Hot Air?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(544), pages 551-572, May.
    19. Girum Abebe & Marcel Fafchamps & Michael Koelle & Simon Quinn, 2019. "Learning Management Through Matching: A Field Experiment Using Mechanism Design," CSAE Working Paper Series 2019-11, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    20. Baltrunaite, Audinga & Bovini, Giulia & Mocetti, Sauro, 2023. "Managerial talent and managerial practices: Are they complements?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    management practices; universities; performance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
    • M51 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Firm Employment Decisions; Promotions
    • M54 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Labor Management

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bri:cmpowp:13/308. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cmbriuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.