Universities’ internal governance and their efficiency: empirical evidence from Russia

This paper aims to assess the relationship between governance practices and the efficiency of universities. We use the conditional efficiency approach and a partial frontier approach (order-m estimator) for measuring universities’ efficiency and consider three important clusters of practices: centralisation, the growth of management teams at the administrative level and incentives for staff. The specific governance practices of universities are positively associated with their efficiency, the results differ for research-oriented and teaching-oriented universities. The optimal strategy for research-intensive universities would be to provide a reasonable level of autonomy and optimal investment in administrative support (administrative staff salaries), while possible recommendations for teaching-oriented universities include centralising some functions that reduce the administrative burden on the department.