Does Vice-Chancellor power determine UK University efficiency performance?

Despite recent evidence linking top management power with firm performance, our understanding about the interaction effect between power and personal characteristics of the top manager is still very limited. Building on and extending the Upper Echelons and Power literature, we address the empirical question: How, i.e. UK Vice-Chancellors' (VC) power influences the efficiency of UK universities? We use panel data from 126 UK universities from 2016 to 2020 to test our hypotheses. Our findings demonstrate that VC power, and its constituents affect efficiency. VCs with more power tend to improve the efficiency of the universities they run respectively. Specifically, VC in receipt of higher compensation and honour medals tend to improve the efficiency of the university they run. In contrast, if they are Oxbridge graduate and have long tenure, the efficiency will decline. More importantly, the interaction results show that a high-power VC who is not from Asian or minority background is shown to improve efficiency but a high-power VC who is a female will drive up efficiency. Our analyses reveal that a VC's power and the constituents to VC power play a crucial role in determining the efficiency level of the university. Furthermore, origin and gender of a VC will moderate the VC's power in influencing the efficiency level.