Predicting executive vacancies: An organizational approach

When an executive departs, some organizations experience a vacancy while others do not. Recent research shows that the occurrence and length of vacancy instances within and across sectors varies widely. However, the causes of such variance in vacancies have yet to be carefully addressed by public management research. This study explores the determinants of executive vacancy, focusing specifically on organizational-level characteristics of size, performance, and sector as well as the role of anticipation of a departure. We use data from public and private US doctoral universities to identify 230 leadership transitions between 1993 and 2013. In this context, we find that anticipation of departure is an extremely strong predictor of vacancy. Moreover, private universities are significantly less likely than their public counterparts to experience executive vacancy while organizational performance and size do not appear to influence vacancy.