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Senior Leadership Teams in Higher Education: What We Know and What We Need to Know

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Abstract

Senior leadership teams are the key decision-makers invested with authority who work collectively to achieve organizational goals. While there is a rich literature on this topic across many disciplines, there is a dearth of research on this topic in higher education. In this article we argue for the need for research on senior leadership teams given their centrality in facilitating the changes needed in higher education. We summarize the key literature from other sectors in order to provide a foundation for a higher education research agenda on this topic. We also review the limited number of such studies that have been conducted in higher education, and we end with implications for practice and a proposed research agenda.

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Notes

  1. In the literature shared, team, and collaborative are used interchangeably. We will use the term shared in this article to refer to all of these.

  2. We rely heavily on the meta-analyses that are now available as they generate a synthesis of findings across dozens of studies on key areas and are a valid source to best understand an issue. This also reduces the sheer citations that would make the paper overly long.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Pullias Center for Higher Education, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, 90049, USA

    Adrianna Kezar, Jude Paul Matias Dizon & Daniel Scott

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  1. Adrianna Kezar
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  2. Jude Paul Matias Dizon
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  3. Daniel Scott
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Correspondence to Adrianna Kezar.

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Kezar, A., Dizon, J.P.M. & Scott, D. Senior Leadership Teams in Higher Education: What We Know and What We Need to Know. Innov High Educ 45, 103–120 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-019-09491-9

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