Strategic management in higher education: An analysis of the involvement of boards of trustees in making strategic decisions

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the degree of board of trustee involvement in the strategic decision making process at their institutions. There are two questions that the dissertation attempts to answer. The first is: What is the degree of involvement in the strategic decision making process by boards of trustees at universities and colleges? The second question is: Is there a link between the degree of involvement by boards of trustees in the strategic decision making process and university/college performance?;Data were collected in the form of university board minutes from thirteen universities in Pennsylvania. From this sample population, board involvement in 304 strategic decisions was analyzed through content analysis.;The results showed that boards of trustees are not actively involved in the strategic decision making process. Boards were classified as Nominal Participants in the process.;A deeper analysis of the boards and decisions revealed that there was a positive association between the number of trustees serving on a board and the degree of involvement in the strategic decision making process. Also, boards, whose members were selected by university officers, were more involved in the process than boards whose members were selected by non-university officers. However, boards with higher percentages of their members with non-academic careers showed no significant association with the degree of involvement in external strategic decisions as well as in their involvement in the decision making process as a whole. There were no significant differences between the degree of board involvement in academic strategic decisions and non-academic strategic decisions. Board of trustee involvement in financial decisions was significantly less than its involvement in other decision issue areas taken as a group. State-related universities were found to have boards which are significantly more involved in making strategic decisions than state universities' boards.;As for institutional performance, no significant associations were found between the degree of board involvement in the decision making process and four measures of institutional performance. Hence, a preliminary link between high board involvement and improved institutional performance has not been established.