Academically inbred presidents and university performance

The presidents of universities are increasingly perceived as key contributors to university performance, but their contribution has been analysed mainly from the perspective of research performance. Our study assesses the impact of university presidents on university performance considering a wider range of university performance indicators that include research performance, student growth and spin-off creation. In particular, the study assesses the effect of having an inbred president on university performance. We analyse a sample of 1744 president–year observations, comprising 310 presidents of 90 Italian universities elected from 2001 to 2022. We find that universities led by inbred presidents tend to have a lower performance in terms of research output and productivity compared to those led by non-inbred presidents but outperform the latter in terms of student growth and particularly local student enrolment. No statistically significant findings are found concerning the creation of spin-offs. The results highlight the negative impact of academic inbreeding on scholarly activities related to research, in alignment with expectations from the literature, and suggest that the more research-oriented universities should not elect or appoint inbred presidents. In today's knowledge society, where knowledge creation is central, universities may consider employing inbred academics as part of their senior management teams in roles related to student growth and affairs, but not as presidents.