Linking the Occupational Pressures of College Presidents to Presidential Turnover

Abstract

Community colleges are expected to serve the needs of their local communities. Hence, college presidents are called on to lead this collaboration between the college and the community. Presidents, however, are affected by a multitude of factors that contribute to abridged tenures, a scenario that can have harmful effects on the educational institution, community, and collaboration. This study incorporated a quantitative research design based on Push–Pull Motivation Theory, a theory that broadly categorizes factors that affect turnover of executives into two areas. The first, push-induced factors, generally consists of organizational or community characteristics that motivate an elected board to dismiss an executive, or encourage him or her to seek employment elsewhere. The second, pull-induced factors, refers to conditions that facilitate an executive’s departure due to career advancement opportunities. The study focuses on these occupational pressures that affect college president turnover based on data collected from 101 presidents of community colleges across 34 states. The analysis reveals that increases in political conflict, internal pressures, external stakeholder demands, and fiscal stress have statistically significant effects on college president turnover.