Overall Research Project Description Many studies explore the impact of governance and situate their studies in higher education examining how governance arrangements affect the performance of colleges or universities. However, several gaps in the literature, include: (1) a narrow definition of governance used in analyzing higher education systems, which focuses only on the structure of governance, and overlooks the process of governance; (2) most previous studies prioritize state-level system structures, thereby ignoring the complex nature of governance within state-systems and the nuance of governance within the institutions themselves.

To bridge the research gaps, this study will examine the relationship between governance and institutional performance in twelve public universities in Florida by using panel data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System over the 2000 to 2020 period. Specifically, this paper asks the following questions: (1) Do the governance arrangements of higher education governance affect the performance of higher education? If so, is governance structure or governance processes more closely related to higher institutional performance? (2) Regarding governance structure, how is the centralization of the state governance system related to the performance of higher education institutions? (3) Which type of governance decision-making processes (i.e., horizontal, vertical governance) are most closely related to performance of higher education institutions? (4) How do the governance structure and process interact to affect the performance of higher education institutions?